TY - JOUR
TI - Conduction and convection heat transfer characteristics of water-based au nanofluids in a square cavity with differentially heated side walls subjected to constant temperatures
AU - Ternik Primož
AU - Rudolf Rebeka
JN - Thermal Science
PY - 2014
VL - 18
IS - 11
SP - 189
EP - 200
PT - Article
AB - The present work deals with the natural convection in a square cavity filled  with the water-based Au nanofluid. The cavity is heated on the vertical and  cooled from the adjacent wall, while the other two horizontal walls are  adiabatic. The governing differential equations have been solved by the  standard finite volume method and the hydrodynamic and thermal fields were  coupled together using the Boussinesq approximation. The main objective of  this study is to investigate the influence of the nanoparticles’ volume  fraction on the heat transfer characteristics of Au nanofluids at the given  base fluid’s (i.e. water) Rayleigh number. Accurate results are presented  over a wide range of the base fluid Rayleigh number and the volume fraction  of Au nanoparticles. It is shown that adding nanoparticles in a base fluid  delays the onset of convection. Contrary to what is argued by many authors,  we show by numerical simulations that the use of nanofluids can reduce the  heat transfer rate instead of increasing it.