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Abstract

Nanofluid is defined as suspension of nanoparticles in the base fluid. Researchers found that nanofluid improves thermophysical properties of base fluid such as thermal conductivity. However, with the addition of nanoparticles into base fluid also increases its viscosity which leads to augmentation of pumping power. Therefore, better understanding on nanofluid’s viscosity characteristic is essential in order to minimize this drawback. This paper presents the investigations on the viscosity characteristic of carbon nanotube based nanofluids. The weight percentage of nanoparticles were varied from 0.01 to 0.5%. Various surfactants such as polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP), Gum Arabic (GA) and hexadecyltrimethylammoniumbromide (CTAB) were also included in the present study. R/S Plus Brookfield rheometer was used to measure viscosity of the samples. Study revealed that nanofluids added with surfactant exhibited lower viscosity compared to nanofluids without surfacant. The viscosity also found increases with the increasing of nanoparticles’ weight percentage. Overall, carbon nanotube (0.5 weight %) based nanofluids added with gum arabic has highest viscosity value compared to other samples.