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Nanofluid droplet evaporation has attracted great interest due to its applications such as in painting, coating and patterning. In most studies, either the particle size or the concentration of nanofluid is considered as a factor in the formation of the residue pattern. This work aims to investigate the effect of both particle size and concentration on the residue pattern. A comprehensive study was made of the residue patterns of Al 2 O 3 and TiO 2 aqueous nanofluid droplets on different substrates (i.e. glass, stainless steel and Teflon). It was found that a ring-shaped pattern was formed at low concentrations and small particle sizes, while a uniform pattern was formed at high concentrations and large particle sizes for Al 2 O 3 nanofluids. In addition, only ring-shaped residue patterns were observed for all concentrations of TiO 2 nanofluids. In the case of different substrates, on a material with a high contact angle with water, it was difficult to form a ring-shaped pattern. The widths of the ring-shaped pattern were analyzed as well. The results showed that the width of the ring-shaped pattern was larger for small particles. The materials of substrate and nanoparticle also influenced the width. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A thinner inverted flag starts flapping at a lower wind speed. • The heat dissipation effect is strongly affected by the inverted flag motion. • The flapping mode induces the highest average vorticity compared with other modes. • The flapping mode induces the largest heat transfer enhancement compared with other modes. It has been demonstrated that flexible vortex generators, e.g., flapping flag, can significantly enhance heat transfer inside a heat sink. However, their heat transfer enhancement is only effective when they exhibit flapping behaviors, which require a flow velocity higher than the heat sink working velocity, and thus restraint their application. Minimizing the critical flapping velocity of the flags without sacrificing the heat transfer performance is needed. In this work, we study the cases of inverted flags with different thicknesses in a channel flow. Three flag motion modes are identified by a high-speed camera with increasing flow velocity. In the first mode transition, i.e., the flag starts flapping, the heat dissipation has the highest enhancement. Numerical simulation reveals that compared to the other motion modes, the flapping mode has the strongest average vorticity along the channel wall, leading to the highest heat dissipation among all flag motion modes. Experimental results show that the critical velocity can be as low as 1.5 m/s, at which the heat dissipation enhancement can be as high as 100%. The findings in this work significantly benefit the application of flexible vortex generators in heat sinks, by enabling a decrease in critical velocity and a good enhancement in heat dissipation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Nanofluid shows a huge potential to be the next-generation heat transfer fluid since the nanoparticles can suspend in the base fluids for a long time and the thermal conductivity of the nanofluid can be far above those of convectional solid–liquid suspension. It has long been known that liquid molecules close to a solid surface can form a layer which is solid-like in structure, but little is known about the connection between this layer and the thermal properties of the suspension. In this study, a semi-analytical model for calculating the enhanced thermal conductivity of nanofluids is derived from the steady heat conduction equation in spherical coordinates. The effects of nanolayer thickness, nanoparticle size, volume fraction, thermal conductivity of nanoparticles and base fluid are discussed. A linear thermal conductivity profile inside the nanolayer is considered in the present model. The proposed model, while investigating the impact of the interfacial nanolayer on the effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids, provides an equation to determine its nanolayer thickness for different types of nanofluids. Hence, different relationships between the nanolayer thickness and the nanoparticle size are found for each type of nanofluid. Moreover, based on the present model’s prediction, it is found that the effective thermal conductivities of nanofluids show the same result as the Maxwell model when the nanolayer thickness value approaches to zero. Lastly, the effective thermal conductivities of different types of nanofluids calculated by the present model is in good agreement with the experimental results and the prediction is much better than the Maxwell model and Bruggeman model. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Inserting a fluttering flag into a channel enhances its heat dissipation. • Heat dissipation effect by a split flag is superior to that by a full flag. • Hydraulic loss of a split flag is lower than that of a full flag. • A split flag starts flutter at a lower wind speed than a full flag. • The fluid-structure interaction of a split flag is stronger than that of a full flag. The use of flags as vortex generators inside heat sinks has been successfully demonstrated as a heat transfer enhancement technique. However, their thermal-hydraulic performance is usually diminished by the blocking effect induced by the fluttering phenomenon. To tackle this problem, with the expectation to maximize the fluid mixing while minimizing the pressure drop, we report a simple and direct design by splitting a flag into multiple strips. Flags with different strip widths were compared with a full flag on the performance of pressure drop and heat transfer. A high-speed camera is used to investigate their fluttering motion. A piezoelectric plate is attached to the wall to measure the flag's flutter frequency. The results show that the performance of a flag with multiple strips outperforms that of the full flag for its lower pressure drop and higher heat dissipation effect. The performance of split flag is not linear with the strip number and the optimal way in our study is to split the full flag into 4 strips. The maximum thermal-hydraulic performance factor of the split flag is 1.91, which is 26% higher than that of the full flag. Besides, the split flag starts fluttering at a lower wind velocity. All these results demonstrate that the split strategy of a flag acting as a vortex generator is of great potential for improving the heat sink performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Trinary micro-porous 32/4/4 MgO/PVDF/PMMA blend with atmospheric window emissivity and solar reflectivity exceeding 97% is developed. • Compared to the baseline radiative cooling materials, trinary micro-porous 32/4/4 MgO/PVDF/PMMA blend enhanced surface temperature suppression by 1.6 ℃ at daytime. • Functionalized glass-PDMS micro-pillar heat exchanger chills water by 2.5 ℃ at an efficiency of 6.3% at nighttime. • Compared to the saturation limits, reduced temperature reduction and efficiency for low Peclet number low is attributed to axial conductive viscous dissipation. Chilled water harvesting is a fundamental application of passive radiative cooling and promotes energy conservation for space cooling in buildings potentially, which relies on well-designed radiative cooling materials and heat transfer interface. This paper reports a scenario leading to viscous dissipative thermo-photonic energy conversion, which takes place in low Peclet number regime of an order of magnitude of 100, where heat transfer is non-Graetzian. Compared to benchmarked glass-polydimethylsiloxane radiative cooler and barium sulphate coating, a newly developed trinary micro-porous 32/4/4 magnesium-oxide/poly(vinylidene-fluoride)/poly(methyl-methacrylate) radiative cooling blend, featuring high atmospheric window emissivity and solar reflectivity, both exceeding 97%, demonstrated a superior cooling performance with additional temperature reduction of 1.6 °C at daytime. Meanwhile, it chilled water at a flow rate of 6.3 µL/s by 1.3 °C upon coating on a glass-polydimethylsiloxane micro-pillar heat exchanger. Quantitative evaluation on the chilled water capacity was carried out at nighttime when the system ran pseudo-steadily. Cooling power measurement on a radiative cooler of same materials recorded a cooling power of 134 W/m2 which is close to the ideal limit. And measured water temperature reduction and cooling efficiency were 2.5 °C and 6.3% respectively. They were significantly lower than the saturation limit. Degraded thermal and energy conversion performances, attributive to extended Graetzian viscous dissipation, were discussed theoretically. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Piezoelectric fan cooling is greatly augmented by geometrical arrangements. • The effect of fan location is much stronger than that of channel configuration on piezoelectric fan cooling. • By balancing the streamwise velocity and spanwise mixing, piezoelectric fan cooling can be maximized. Piezoelectric fan cooling is drawing growing attention for its compact size and high energy efficiency. However, its cooling capacity is not good enough and needs to be maximized to catch up with the industry demand. In this work, we aim to increase heat transfer performance by varying piezoelectric fan locations and channel configurations. The effect of fan location is firstly studied. By tuning the fan position, a higher streamwise velocity is achieved, thus increasing the heat transfer. A fan inserted into the channel achieves a 55% enhancement on the Nusselt number compared with natural convection. On top of this, the effect of the channel configuration is explored. Both expansion and contraction configurations benefit heat transfer, and the optimal one adds a further 10% enhancement on top of the parallel configuration case. That is, the maximum cooling enhancement is 70% compared with natural convection. The fan motion is captured by a high-speed camera. Flow visualization is used to investigate the flow pattern. The channel streamwise fluid velocity is examined. It is found that the contraction configuration boosts the streamwise velocity and generates a jet flow pattern at the channel outlet. The expansion configuration significantly alters the flow motion with more vortices in a longer transmission distance, yielding a stronger spanwise mixing. The findings demonstrate that geometrical arrangements can substantially enhance the heat transfer performance of the piezoelectric fan, thus paving the way for tackling the urgent cooling requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The MR-2 SGHF exhibits the highest synergistic thermal conductivity. • The low mixing ratio droplets give highest evaporation rates for 25 °C≤ T s ≤ 100 °C. • The high mixing ratio droplets give highest evaporation rates for 103 °C≤ T s ≤ 125 °C. • The SGHF droplet evaporation rate on residue is up to 10 times that on copper. • The latent heat flux removal up to 890 W/cm2 is obtained using SGHF droplets. Thermal management of many high heat flux devices depends on droplet based cooling, such as the spray cooling or electro-wetting for hotspot cooling. Recently, heat dissipation in these devices increased to unprecedented levels, pressing a need for advanced thermal fluids in droplet based cooling systems. In this paper, we address this challenge by investigating the evaporation and boiling performance of the silver-graphene hybrid nanofluid (SGHF) droplet for its various mixing ratios and droplet sizes on a heated copper and a residue surface, obtained from the evaporation of the first SGHF droplet. The results show that low mixing ratio (MR ≤ 0.1) SGHF droplets exhibit highest evaporation rates for substrate temperature (T s) in a range of 25 °C ≤ T s ≤ 100 °C. However, this trend is reversed in the nucleate boiling regime, where high mixing ratio (MR ≥ 0.9) droplets give highest evaporation rates. Moreover, all SGHF droplets, irrespective of their mixing ratio, exhibit similar evaporation rates in the film-boiling regime. Furthermore, the SGHF droplet evaporation rate on its porous residue surface increases up to 173% for 25 °C ≤ T s ≤ 100 °C and by an order of magnitude in the nucleate boiling regime as compared to a plain copper surface. We also show that besides the synergistic thermal effect, the thermal Marangoni convection also affects the SGHF droplet evaporation rate. Moreover, we develop a diffusion-convection evaporation model that can predict the evaporation rate for different mixing ratios of the SGHF droplet on heated copper and residue surfaces. Moreover, we demonstrate that the latent heat flux up to 890 W/cm2 and 850 W/cm2 can be achieved using a SGHF droplet on heated copper and residue surfaces, respectively, suggesting its potential application in high heat flux device cooling. Finally, we discuss the effects of spray hydrodynamic parameters on critical heat flux of the SGHF spray cooling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This study aims at improving the performance of a waste heat driven adsorption chiller by applying a novel composite adsorbent which is synthesized from activated carbon impregnated by soaking in sodium silicate solution and then in calcium chloride solution. Modeling is performed to analyze the influence of the hot water inlet temperature, cooling water inlet temperature, chilled water inlet temperatures, and adsorption/desorption cycle time on the specific cooling power (SCP) and coefficient of performance (COP) of the chiller system with the composite adsorbent. The simulation calculation indicates a COP value of 0.65 with a driving source temperature of 85°C in combination with coolant inlet and chilled water inlet temperature of 30°C and 14°C, respectively. The most optimum adsorption–desorption cycle time is approximately 360s based on the performance from COP and SCP. The delivered chilled water temperature is about 9°C under these operating conditions, achieving a SCP of 380W/kg. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• MR-1 hybrid nanofluid droplet gives the highest evaporation rate (up to 370%). • The evaporation rate increases by 240% as V fd /V sd increases from 1 to 20. • The evaporation rate drops moving from MR-2 to MR-5 hybrid nanofluid droplets. • High droplet spreading is achieved in GNP/MR-1 nanofluid/hybrid nanofluid droplets. • The pore size and areal porosity increase with increasing residue size. Droplet evaporation offers high heat rejection rates and is widely used in the form of spray cooling or dropwise cooling of various heat dissipating devices. However, due to the limiting heat flux removal capacity of conventional fluids, such as water, these cannot be used in thermal management of high heat flux devices. In this research, the evaporation of silver (Ag)-graphene (GNP) hybrid nanofluid droplet and its residue effects on the evaporation of following Ag-GNP hybrid nanofluid droplet, due to its synergistic thermal properties, is experimentally investigated for various mixing ratios, from MR-1 (0.1(Ag):0.9(GNP)) to MR-5 (0.9(Ag):0.1(GNP)), and different residue sizes. A theoretical model is also proposed for hybrid nanofluid droplet evaporation and semi-empirical relations are developed to estimate the hybrid nanofluid droplet spreading over its residue surface. The results show a substantial increase in the droplet evaporation rate with increasing residue size and decreasing mixing ratio. MR-1 hybrid nanofluid droplet gives the highest evaporation rate (up to 370%) on its highly wetted residue surface, while the evaporation rate significantly drops moving from MR-2 to MR-5 hybrid nanofluid droplets on their partially wetted residue surfaces. Moreover, the evaporation rate substantially increases (up to 240%) with increasing residue size for MR-1 hybrid nanofluid droplet resting on its residue surface, however, the effect of residue size on droplet evaporation rate considerably diminishes moving from MR-2 to MR-5 hybrid nanofluid droplets resting on their respective residues. Image, graphical abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • 0.5:0.5 is the optimum mixing ratio with enhanced overall hydrothermal properties. • Hybrid nanofluid shows three distinct concentration stratified zones. • Mixing ratio above 0.5:0.5 results in rapid settling due to high settling velocity. • Stability for mixing ratio below 0.5:0.5 is less dependent on zeta potential. Abstract The dispersion stability and thermophysical properties of metal–metal oxide hybrid nanofluid for various mixing ratios are investigated in this paper. Cu nanoparticles having high thermal conductivity and poor dispersion stability are dispersed in water with Al 2 O 3 nanoparticles that have a high dispersion stability and low thermal conductivity, in mixing ratios 0.3:0.7 (MR-1), 0.5:0.5 (MR-2) and 0.7:0.3 (MR-3) to achieve a Cu-Al 2 O 3 hybrid nanofluid with improved hydrothermal properties. Dispersion stability and thermophysical properties of the hybrid nanofluid were studied for 240 h using various experimental techniques such as zeta/particle size analyser, UV–Vis spectroscopy, transmission electron microscope, sedimentation, thermal analyser and viscometer. The results show that the hybrid nanofluid transforms into low, medium and high concentration stratified zones over time. Also, stability in Cu/Al 2 O 3 single particle nanofluids and MR-3 hybrid nanofluid is related to both sedimentation velocity and zeta potential while sedimentation velocity has the dominating effect on stability of MR-1 and MR-2 hybrid nanofluids. Mixing ratio above MR-2 is identified for rapid settling due to high sedimentation velocity. Also, MR-2 is determined as an optimum mixing ratio to achieve enhanced overall hydrothermal properties for the hybrid nanofluid due to its improved thermal conductivity and relatively better stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]