Enhanced thermal conductivity of nanofluids diagnosis by molecular dynamics simulations

Molecular Dynamics simulations are performed to calculate the thermal conductivity of nanofluids, and to understand the fundamental physics of the enhancement of thermal conductivity observed in experiments. Based on the analysis, intermolecular interactions between copper-copper atoms, layer structure surrounding nanoparticles, convection effect induced by the Brownian motion of copper atoms, as well as particle-particle interactions are identified and confirmed on the enhancement using Green-Kubo method in thermal conductivity. Copyright ? 2008 American Scientific Publishers All rights reserved.