A fractal model for predicting the effective thermal conductivity of liquid with suspension of nanoparticles

Based on the effective medium approximation and the fractal theory for the description of nanoparticle cluster and its radial distribution, a method for modeling the effective thermal conductivity of nanofluid is established. The size effect and the surface adsorption of nanoparticles are taken into considerations. The proposed fractal model is discussed in detail for its application, and it predicts quite well with our recent measuring data for dilute suspensions of metallic oxide nanoparticles. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.