Viscosity of carbon nanotube/water nanofluid: Equilibrium molecular dynamics

Special features of nanofluids as heat transfer media have made them very important. The first step for investigating nanofluids was to know the characteristics of nanofluid because they are very important for describing their behavior. Although many attempts have been made to model the thermo-physical properties of nanofluids, there is no comprehensive model to predict these properties. In this study, the viscosity of single-wall carbon nanotube-water nanofluid as most important thermo-physical property of nanofluid was investigated by equilibrium molecular dynamics simulation. In addition, the effect of volume fraction of nanoparticles and the nanofluid temperature on viscosity is studied. The viscosity variability was investigated in range of 0.125-0.734% and the temperature 25-65 degrees C. The results showed that viscosity increases with high volume fraction of nanoparticles and low temperature of nanofluid. Furthermore, maximum nanofluids viscosity was 320% with volume fractions of 0.73% at 25 degrees C.