A review of uncertainties in the study of heat transfer properties of nanofluids.

Nanofluids are important heat transfer mediums with great potential in industry applications because of its high thermal conductivity when adding metal or metalloid nanoparticles, which has better heat transfer characteristics and controllability than the base liquid. However, there are great uncertainties, deviations and anomalies in the computational model, experimental results and theoretical analysis when conducting research on the thermal physical properties, convective heat transfer performance and heat transfer mechanism of nanofluids. This poses a great challenge to the precise and active controllability of nanofluids when considering their own parameters and external excitation. Also, these inevitable problems may cause certain confusions on the follow-up study of nanofluids. Based on these phenomena, this paper systematically reviews the recent researches on heat transfer performance of nanofluids. The thermophysical characteristics, convective heat transfer coefficient, stability and heat transfer mechanism of suspension mixed nanofluids were summarized and compared. It is hoped that it can provide effective references and guidance for researchers to study the heat transfer performance of nanofluids, and also provide new ideas for future researches on the heat transfer performance of nanofluids. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]