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Updated: Aug 21, 2026

Characterization of Thermal Transport in One-dimensional Solid Materials
Published on: January 26, 2014
Model for heat conduction in nanofluids
D Hemanth Kumar1, Hrishikesh E Patel, V R Rajeev Kumar
1Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600 036, India.
Abstract:
A comprehensive model has been proposed to account for the large enhancement of thermal conductivity in nanofluids and its strong temperature dependence, which the classical Maxwellian theory has been unable to explain. The dependence of thermal conductivity on particle size, concentration, and temperature has been taken care of simultaneously in our treatment. While the geometrical effect of an increase in surface area with a decrease in particle size, rationalized using a stationary particle model, accounts for the conductivity enhancement, a moving particle model developed from the Stokes-Einstein formula explains the temperature effect. Predictions from the combined model agree with the experimentally observed values of conductivity enhancement of nanofluids.
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Mechanisms of Heat Transfer
Conduction, accounting for approximately 3% of body heat loss at rest, is the process of exchanging heat between molecules of two materials in direct contact. This can result in both heat loss and gain. For instance, when the body is submerged in water, which conducts heat 20 times more effectively than air, it can either lose or gain significant heat.
Mechanisms of Heat Transfer I
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