Model and comparative study for peristaltic transport of water based nanofluids

With every passing day the nanofluids are proving more and more useful in several industrial and biomedical processes. Such utility of nanofluids grasped attention of the researchers from all over the world. At present, several theoretical models are available to predict the effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids. On the other hand it still remains to examine the effects of different thermal conductivity models on the outcomes of the analysis. Mixed convective peristaltic transport of water based nanofluids with viscous dissipation and heat generation/absorption is examined here using two different models of the effective thermal conductivity of nanofluids. Analysis is performed using the Titanium oxide or titania (TiO₂), Aluminum oxide or Alumina (Al₂O₃), Copper oxide (CuO), Copper (Cu) and Silver (Ag) nanoparticles. Water is treated as the base fluid. The two cases of Maxwell's and Hamilton-Crosser's thermal conductivity models are used in the analysis. Numerical solutions for the axial velocity, temperature and heat transfer rate at the boundary are obtained and analyzed. Results show that for higher nanoparticle volume fraction and for nanoparticles with higher thermal conductivity the gap between the results predicted by the Hamilton-Crosser's and the Maxwell's model widens.