THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY MODELING OF DIELECTRIC OILS-BASED NANOFLUIDS USING THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD
The enhancement of the thermal conductivity of dielectric oils has a positive effect on the performance of electrical equipment that uses these oils as a cooling medium. Nanofluids (NFs) have inspired high-voltage engineers to use them as alternative fluids in power transformers due to their impr...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
The Serbian Academic Center
2024-03-01
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| Series: | Applied Engineering Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://aeletters.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/AEL00391.pdf |
| Summary: | The enhancement of the thermal conductivity of dielectric oils has a positive
effect on the performance of electrical equipment that uses these oils as a
cooling medium. Nanofluids (NFs) have inspired high-voltage engineers to
use them as alternative fluids in power transformers due to their impressive
heat transfer and insulation compared to traditional dielectric oils. The
present study is a numerical simulation by COMSOL Multiphysics of the
thermal conductivity of NFs based on dielectric oils used in power
transformers, to identify the effect of temperature, the concentration of
nanoparticles (NPs), type of insulating fluid and NPs on thermal
conductivity. The NFs were modeled inside a cube using the finite element
method (FEM) by applying a temperature gradient. Several types of NPs
were used (SiC, ZnO, TiO2, and Al2O3) in addition to several volume
concentrations (0%, 0.001%, 0.002%, 0.01%, and 0.02%). The results
showed a significant improvement in the thermal conductivity of the NFs
with increasing concentration since the best results were recorded at an
estimated volume concentration of 0.02%, while the lowest results were
obtained for samples using a volume concentration estimated at 0.001%.
The base fluid (BF) type and NPs play a dominant role in the thermal
performance of the NFs, as the vegetable oil-based nanofluid provided the
highest thermal conductivity values and silicon carbides (SiC) was the best
NPs used in this study. However, a decrease in thermal transfer capacities
was observed for all samples with increasing temperature. |
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| ISSN: | 2466-4677 2466-4847 |