Survey on nucleate pool boiling of nanofluids: The effect of particle size relative to roughness

Pool boiling heat transfer using nanofluids (which are suspensions of nano-sized particles in a base fluid) has been a subject of many investigations and incoherent results have been reported in literature regarding the same. In the past, experiments were conducted in nucleate pool boiling with varying parameters such as particle size, concentration, surface roughness etc. and all sort of results ranging from heat transfer enhancement, deterioration and no effect were reported. This work tries to segregate a survey on pool boiling of nanofluids with respect to particle concentration. This is due to the fact that a major drift in heat transfer behavior is observed at higher and lower particle concentration. But upon deep perusal it has been found that deterioration in heat transfer coefficient are mainly observed at higher particle concentrations (4-16% by weight) and enhancements mainly at lower particle concentrations (0.32-1.25% by weight). Moreover, the relative size of the particle with respect to the surface roughness of the heating surface seems to play an important role in understanding the boiling behaviour. Also, recent works have reported that change in 'surface wetting' of the heating surface due to nanofluids and the formation of a porous layer modifiying nucleation site density can be of importance in predicting nucleate pool boiling characteristics of nanofluids. In the present paper, attempts are made to make systematic analysis of results in literature and try to bring out a common understanding of the results in literature. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.