Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/rser

A review on nanofluids: Data-driven modeling of thermalphysical

properties and the application in automotive radiator
Ningbo Zhao, Shuying Li, Jialong Yang n
College of Power and Energy Engineering, Harbin Engineering University, Harbin 150001, China

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: As a potential candidate for the next generation heat transfer media, nanofluids has attracted many
Received 5 December 2015 researchers and became a very active field in the past decade due to its many good properties. Although a
Received in revised form lot of experimental research and theoretical investigations have been carried out to study the ther-
19 July 2016
malphysical properties of different nanofluids, there are still no well-accepted theories for effectively
Accepted 14 August 2016
predicting the thermal conductivity and viscosity of all nanofluids with respect to the properties of
nanoparticles and base fluid. This paper first summarizes the recent research on data-driven modeling of
Keywords: nanofluids thermalphysical properties based on artificial neural networks (ANN). Then, the potential
Nanofluids applications of nanofluids in automotive radiator are analyzed. Some major findings of the review in-
Thermal conductivity
clude: (1) given sufficient samples, ANN seems to be an effective approach to predicting the thermal-
Viscosity
physical properties of nanofluids; (2) the overall heat transfer performance of automotive radiator can be
Artificial neural networks
Automotive radiator enhanced by using nanofluids even if there are some discrepancies in the percentage of enhancement
and the optimum amount of nanoparticles; and (3) there are many contradictory results in the literatures
about the influences of nanoparticle concentration on Nusselt number and pumping power.
& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Contents

1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 596
2. The enhancements of thermal conductivity and viscosity of nanofluids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
2.1. Thermal conductivity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 597
2.2. Viscosity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
3. Data-driven modeling of thermalphysical properties based on ANN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600
4. Flow and heat transfer performance of nanofluids in automotive radiator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603
4.1. Experimental investigations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 603
4.2. Theoretical and numerical investigations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 607
5. Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 611
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

1. Introduction technologies were developed to improve the heat transfer per-

formance of engine thermal management system [2,3]. As one of
Nowadays, energy source and environment have become the the most important part of automotive engine (Fig. 1), radiator is
urgent problems for every country all over the world. As the price responsible for cooling the automotive engine by releasing heat
of fossil fuels increase dramatically, there is an increasing demand through the cooling fins [4]. With the strictly requirement of heat
for high effective engines [1]. To accomplish this, different transfer in a limited space, various fin structures including ser-
rated fin, wavy fin and louver fin were successively developed to
n
Corresponding author. enhance the convective heat transfer coefficient and increase the
E-mail address: yangjialongheu@126.com (J. Yang). heat transfer area [5,6]. However, considering the rapid increase in

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2016.08.029
1364-0321/& 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Fig. 1. Radiator of the automotive engine [4].
heat flux and owing to manufacturing limitation, it is difficult to
significantly improve the heat transfer capabilities of automotive
radiator by optimizing the structure of fin [7].
Coolant plays a critical role that affects the heat transfer per-
formance of automotive radiator. Compared to many metal or
metal oxide, the conventional cooling mediums such as ethylene
glycol, water and their various derivatives with different propor-
tion exhibit relative low thermal conductivity. To solve the fouling
and wear problems of the solid-liquid suspension consisting mi-
crometer or millimeter sized particles, an innovative kind of heat
transfer fluid named nanofluids is developed by suspending dif-
ferent types of nanometer-sized particles in the traditional heat
transfer working mediums [8]. Nowadays, nanofluids has become
a very important topic in the field of automotive radiator due to its
prospect in enhanced heat transfer performance.
Thermophysical properties, the essence factor affecting the
heat transfer and flow behaviors, play the important roles in the
study of nanofluids. Many available studies showed that like the
conventional solid-liquid suspension suspending millimeter or
micrometer sized particles, the density and specific heat of na-
nofluids could be calculated based on the principles of energy
conservation and mass conservation [9]. Unfortunately, there are
little agreements on the other important thermophysical proper-
ties (especially for the thermal conductivity and viscosity) of na-
nofluids due to the differences in preparation technology, mea-
suring and data analyzing methods [10]. Murshed et al. [11], Li
et al. [12], Corcione [13], Mahbubul et al. [14], Sarkar et al. [15],
Hossain et al. [16], Angayarkanni et al. [17] and Solangi et al. [18]
respectively reviewed the developments on the thermophysical
properties of nanofluids from different analysis of experiment and
theory. As shown in their studies, most of the published research
indicated that the addition of nanoparticles did enhance the
thermal conductivity and viscosity of base fluid in varying degrees
and the enhancements could be affected by nanoparticle proper-
ties (such as type, volume fraction and size), temperature and base
fluid. Besides, in order to analyze the enhanced mechanism of
nanofluids thermal conductivity and viscosity, a large number of
theoretical models also were developed considering the mechan-
isms such as heat transport within the nanoparticles [19–22],
nano-shells at the interface between liquid and particle [23–27],
Brownian motion [28–31] and clustering of nanoparticles [32,33].
In additions, based on the experimental data, many empirical
correlations were suggested to represent the influences of nano-
particle properties (concentration, size, shape, etc.), base fluid
types and temperature on the thermophysical properties of na-
nofluids [34–39]. However, since the enhanced transport proper-
ties of nanofluids can be affected by many factors, the existing
studies have difficulty in the prediction of nanofluids thermal
conductivity and viscosity by using the model-based approach.
Artificial neural networks (ANN), one of data-driven modeling
597
approaches, have the strong nonlinear mapping ability and can
effectively reflect the complex mapping relation between input
factors and the output targets without the accurately mathema-
tical modeling. Nowadays, ANN has been applied successfully in
the thermal science fields including the modeling of thermo-
physical properties [40,41] and the prediction of heat transfer
behavior [42] because it was easier to modeling and the prediction
precision was better. Unfortunately, although some researchers
indicated that ANN was an effective approach for the thermal-
physical properties prediction of nanofluids, there were still many
differences in the selection of ANN type and the determination of
ANN structure (especially for the input-output variables). For this
case, more comprehensive studies are required to further under-
stand the modeling process and performance of ANN for predict-
ing the thermophysical properties of nanofluids.
In addition to the variation characteristic and prediction of
nanofluids thermophysical properties, the thermal-hydraulic per-
formance of automotive radiator with nanofluids is another hot
topic. In the recent years, a lot of literatures have investigated the
positive applicability of nanofluids in automotive radiator by both
theoretical analysis and experiment testing. Most of the available
studies observed that the overall heat transfer performance of
automotive radiator could be enhanced by using nanofluids.
However, many discrepancies also could be found in the existing
study, especially for the percentage of enhancement and the op-
timum amount of nanoparticles. The thermal-hydraulic perfor-
mances of automotive radiator with nanofluids as coolant are
unable to understand completely only from the review paper re-
ported by Sidik et al. [43].
In this paper, on the basis of many existing review investiga-
tions, the experimental thermal conductivity and viscosity of dif-
ferent nanofluids are further analyzed considering the effects of
nanoparticle volume fraction, temperature and nanoparticle size.
Then, an overview of the recent research on data-driven modeling
of nanofluids thermalphysical properties based on ANN is sum-
marized to understand the applicability of ANN for predicting the
thermalphysical properties of nanofluids. Some important in-
ferences from the various literatures will be highlighted. Lastly, an
attempt is made to clarify the potential application values of na-
nofluids in automotive radiator by reviewing the available ex-
perimental, theoretical and numerical investigations.
2. The enhancements of thermal conductivity and viscosity of
nanofluids
As we all know, the thermal-hydraulic performances of auto-
motive radiator usually can be quantitatively characterized by
using the heat transfer coefficient and press drop, which are the
functions of thermophysical properties. Therefore, the effects of
various factors including nanoparticle properties (such as type,
volume fraction and size), temperature and base fluid on the
thermophysical properties (especially for thermal conductivity
and viscosity) of nanofluids has always been an important issue
both for nanofluids theory studying and engineering application in
automotive radiator.
2.1. Thermal conductivity
The original intention of developing nanofluids is because the
addition of nanoparticles can effectively enhance the thermal
conductivity of base fluid. In the past two decades, based on the
different technologies, such as transient hot-wire approach, stea-
dy-state parallel plate approach and temperature oscillation ap-
proach, a large number of experimental investigations were car-
ried out to measure the thermal conductivity of nanofluids [44].
598 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Most of the available results showed that nanofluids could en-
hance the thermal conductivity in varying degrees. And the de-
centralized processing technology, the basic properties of nano-
particle and base fluid, and temperature are the macroscopic fac-
tors which can affect the increments of nanofluids thermal con-
ductivity. The measured results reported by Masuda et al. [45]
indicated that the addition of γ-Al2O3 nanoparticles (13 nm) at
4.3% volume fraction increased the effective thermal conductivity
of water by almost 30%. Based on the experimental approach, Lee
et al. [8] and Wang et al. [46] respectively discussed the char-
acteristics of thermal conductivity enhancement for the Al2O3 and
CuO nanofluids. Good agreements were obtained that with the
increase of nanoparticle volume fraction, the thermal conductivity
ratios between nanofluids and base fluid could improve linearly.
Besides, Das et al. [47], Li et al. [48] and Vajjha et al. [49] respec-
tively presented the experimental investigations to examine the
effects of temperature on the thermal conductivity of different
nanofluids. All their results showed that the thermal conductivity
enhancements of nanofluids would be more obvious in a higher
temperature environment. As an example of Al2O3-water nano-
fluids from Li et al. [48], the thermal conductivity could enhanced
approximately three times when the temperature increased from
300 K to 307.7 K. In addition, according to the experimental ana-
lysis presented by Mintsa et al. [34] and Murshed et al. [50], it was
also demonstrated that nanoparticle size and shape were the im-
portant factors affecting the enhancement of nanofluids thermal
conductivity.
Taking four typical water based nanofluids (respectively sus-
pending the nanoparticles of Al2O3, CuO, TiO2 and SiO2) as ex-
amples, Fig. 2 show the variations of the thermal conductivity
ratio k nf /kbf between nanofluids and base fluid with nanoparticle
volume fraction. From Fig. 2, it is observed that all the statistical
Fig. 2. Effects of nanoparticle volume fraction on thermal conductivity ratio of four water based nanofluids: (a) Al2O3, (b) CuO, (c) TiO2 and (d) SiO2 [51-60,62-64,67].
nanofluids have visibly higher thermal conductivities than the
corresponding base fluid. Besides, for any thermal conductivity
ratio k nf /kbf , it can increase linearly with increasing nanoparticle
volume fraction. However, due to the differences in preparation
technology, measuring and data analyzing methods, there are still
many discrepancies in the percentage of thermal conductivity
enhancement. For example, at a fixed temperature of 303 K and
nanoparticle size of 22 nm, the experimental thermal conductivity
of SiO2-water from Azmi et al. [65] are significantly less than those
obtained by Li et al. [66].
Different from the effects of nanoparticle volume fraction
mentioned above, the enhanced characteristics of temperature in
thermal conductivity are inconsistent for different nanofluids. As
shown in Fig. 3(a) and (b), if other factors are constant, the thermal
conductivity ratio of Al2O3 and CuO nanofluids can be linearly
enhanced with the increase in temperature. And the enhance-
ments are more obvious at higher temperature, which may be
explained as the contribution of nanoparticle Brownian motion.
For the TiO2-water nanofluids which are reported in Fig. 3(c), most
of the investigations also found similar results indicating the en-
hancement of nanofluids thermal conductivity increased with the
increase of temperature. However, surprisingly, Hussein et al. [73]
reported an opposite conclusion. Besides, by analyzing the ex-
perimental data illustrated in Fig. 3(d), it is easily observed that
the influence of temperature on the thermal conductivity ratio of
SiO2-water nanofluids is insignificant. From the above mentioned
discussion, we can find that the complex feature of nanofluids
varying with temperature may be an important obstacle to de-
velop the effective thermal conductivity model.
In addition, considering the increase of heat transfer area and
the enhancement of nanoparticle Brownian motion, Teng et al.
[36] and Chon et al. [68] indicated that significant improvement of
 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Fig. 3. Effects of temperature on thermal conductivity ratio of four water based nanofluids: (a) Al2O3, (b) CuO, (c) TiO2 and (d) SiO2 [69,71,72,74,75].
thermal conductivity could be obtained as the diameter of Al2O3
nanoparticle decreased, which was shown in Fig. 4.
2.2. Viscosity
As another very important thermophysical property, viscosity
can describe the internal resistance of nanofluids to flow [14]. In
industrial applications, both the pumping power and convective
heat transfer coefficient are influenced by viscosity [76]. Therefore,
it is very necessary to investigate the influence of nanoparticle on
the viscosity of base fluid for future understanding the rheological
characteristics of nanofluids.
Masuda et al. [45] firstly investigated the viscosity of three
water based nanofluids containing γ-Al2O3 (13 nm), SiO2 (12 nm)
and TiO2 (27 nm) nanoparticle. They observed that the suspen-
sions of above nanoparticles had little effects on the viscosity and
flow resistance of base fluid. However, most of the later published
literatures obtained the other conclusions that as the nanoparticle
volume fraction increased, the viscosity of nanofluids would be
enhanced significantly. For example, Murshed et al. [77] experi-
mentally analyzed the viscosity characteristics of Al2O3-water
nanofluids and observed that 82% enhancement was obtained at
nearly 5% volume fraction. Garg et al. [78] measured the viscosity
of ethylene glycol with CuO nanoparticles. According to their re-
sults, it was clear seen that the enhanced viscosity could not be
effectively calculated by using the traditional Einstein law and
about four times viscosity enhancements were obtained. As de-
picted in the investigation of Bobbo et al. [79], about 12.9% and
6.8% enhancement could be respectively obtained for the SWCNH-
water nanofluids and TiO2-water nanofluids at 1.0% volume frac-
tion and 283 K. Jamshidi et al. [80] experimentally studied the
effects of adding SiO2 nanoparticles on the viscosity of different
599
base fluid. They reported that for their nanofluids, the increase of
nanoparticles volume fraction could enhance the viscosity of the
corresponding base fluid. By analyzing the effects of nanoparticle
volume fraction on Al2O3-water nanofluids, Putra et al. [70] and
Das et al. [81] pointed out that nanofluids behaved as Newton li-
quid in the lower nanoparticle fraction. Prasher et al. [82] in-
dicated that there was a proportional augment trend for the
viscosity of nanofluids as the volume fraction of nanoparticle in-
creased. Based on the experimental data obtained from Chevalier
et al. [83], it was easily found that at room temperature, the effect
of SiO2 nanoparticles on the viscosity enhancements of ethanol
based nanofluids was anomalous. Lu and Fan [84] investigated the
viscosity of Al2O3-water and Al2O3-ethylene glycol nanofluids for
different nanoparticle volume fraction by using mathematical si-
mulation and experiments respectively. Both the results showed
that with the increase of Al2O3 nanoparticle concentration, the
viscosities of the above two nanofluids became higher. Besides, in
the study of Chandrasekar et al. [35], they found that the viscosity
of water increased linearly up to 2% volume fraction of Al2O3 na-
noparticles. But Lee et al. [85] indicated that there was a nonlinear
relation between the viscosity of the Al2O3-water nanofluids and
the nanoparticle volume fraction even in 0.01–0.3% ranges. More
experimental investigations about the effect of nanoparticle vo-
lume fraction on the viscosities of the typical water based nano-
fluids are summarized in Fig. 5.
To further understand the effect of temperature, many con-
siderable researches were also carried out one after another, as
shown in Fig. 6. Nguyen et al. [87,91] experimentally studied the
viscosity characteristics of two water based nanofluids suspending
Al2O3 and CuO nanoparticles for a wide temperature range. They
found that the viscosity of nanofluids could decrease with the
increase of temperature, and the exponential decrements in
600 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Fig. 4. Effects of nanoparticle size on thermal conductivity ratio of Al2O3-water
nanofluids: (a) Teng et al. [36] and (b) Chon et al. [68].
viscosity were noticeable at the high nanoparticle volume frac-
tions. The similar results also were obtained by Namburu et al.
[92,93], Kulkarni et al. [94] and Naik et al. [95]. However, according
to the measured viscosity illustrated in Fig. 6(d), it could be easily
seen that the viscosity of SiO2-water nanofluids decreased linearly
as temperature increased at any nanoparticle volume fraction.
Besides, in other literatures, Prasher et al. [82] and Chen et al. [86]
indicated that the relative viscosity of nanofluids was independent
of temperature.
At present, there have been few literatures in the effect of na-
noparticle size on the viscosity of nanofluids. Nguyen et al. [87]
experimentally analyzed the viscosity of Al2O3-water and CuO-
water nanofluids with different nanoparticle size. They found that
nanoparticle size was an important factor for nanofluids viscosity
and the effect became more significant when nanoparticle volume
fraction was higher. Moreover, their studies emphasized that the
viscosity of Al2O3-water nanofluids of corresponding to 36 nm and
47 nm nanoparticle size were nearly equal when nanoparticle
volume fraction was below 4%. He et al. [61] measured the visc-
osity of TiO2-distilled water nanofluids for three different nano-
particle sizes and discovered the shear viscosity could increase
with the increase of nanoparticle size. In addition to the above
literatures, many contradictory results also were found. Chevalier
et al. [83] studied the viscosity of SiO2-ethanol for three different
nanoparticle sizes (35, 94, 190 nm) and reported that viscosity
increased with the decrease of nanoparticle size. Lu and Fan [84]
showed the viscosity of Al2O3-water and Al2O3-ethylene glycol for
different nanoparticles sizes by using numerically and experi-
mentally methods. Their research results showed that the viscosity
of nanofluids decreased with increasing the size of nanoparticle.
Fig. 5. Effects of nanoparticle volume fraction on viscosity of various water based
nanofluids: (a) Al2O3, (b) CuO, SiO2 and TiO2 [88,90].
They also found that the change in shear viscosity was compara-
tively less when diameters of nanoparticle are more than 30 nm.
Anoop et al. [96] also indicated that the viscosity of nanofluids
increased with the reduction of nanoparticle size. Moreover, the
same results also were investigated by the studies of Pastoriza-
Gallego et al. [89], Namburu et al. [92] and Schmidt et al. [97].
From what has been discussed above, it can be indicated that
the studies of nanofluids viscosity are not perfect. The existing
investigations have not been completed to understand the en-
hanced characteristics and overall physical description for the
viscosity of nanofluids.
3. Data-driven modeling of thermalphysical properties based
on ANN
For the theoretical and numerical investigations of automotive
radiator with nanofluids as coolant, one of the most important
content is the selection of nanofluids thermalphysical properties.
Therefore, how to develop the effective thermalphysical properties
model is very valuable and meaningful.
Technically, the modeling and prediction of nanofluids ther-
malphysical properties is mainly classified as theoretical model-
based approach, empirical correlations-based approach and data-
driven approach. Compared with the former two approaches,
data-driven approach represented by the ANN has been attracted
considerable attention in recent years due to its better capability
in modeling, nonlinear mapping and recognition. Hojjat et al. [98]
firstly proposed a three-layer feed forward neural network to
 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Fig. 6. Effects of temperature on viscosity of four water based nanofluids: (a) Al2O3, (b) CuO, (c) TiO2 and (d) SiO2.
predict the thermal conductivities of various non-Newtonian na-
nofluids. They found that there was a good agreement between
the predicted values and experimental data. The average and
maximum errors were only 1.6% and 5.8%, respectively.
To predict the thermal conductivity of Al2O3-water and TiO2-
water nanofluids, Longo et al. [99] developed two feed-forward
ANN models with different inputs. As shown in Fig. 7, it could be
seen that both 3-input and 4-input ANN models selected the na-
noparticle volume fraction, temperature and nanoparticle thermal
conductivity as input and used the thermal conductivity ratio as
output. But for the 4-input ANN model, the effect of nanoparticle
size on the thermal conductivity enhancement of nanofluids was
also considered. The architectures of above two ANN models were
3-4-1 and 4-5-1, respectively. By comparing the predicted results
with the experimental data, they indicated that ANN was an ef-
fective approach to highlight the specific mechanisms that con-
tributing to the thermal conductivity enhancement of oxide-water
nanofluids. Besides, their results also showed that compared with
the 3-input model, more reasonable and accurate result could be
obtained by inputting the cluster average size of nanoparticles.
Based on the 175 experimental data (80% for training and 20%
for testing) obtained from literatures, Mehrabi et al. [100] pro-
posed an artificial intelligence algorithm named Adaptive Neuro-
Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) to predict the thermal con-
ductivity of Al2O3-water nanofluids. In their study, the input
parameters were temperature, nanoparticle volume fraction and
size, and the target parameter was the thermal conductivity ratio.
Their results demonstrated that ANFIS was an effective approach
in comparison with the traditional methods for describing the
enhancement behavior of nanofluids thermal conductivity. Then,
taking the Al2O3-water nanofluids as an example, they also
601
discussed the applications of FCM-based neuro-fuzzy inference
system and genetic algorithm-polynomial neural network (Fig. 8)
in the modeling and prediction of nanofluids thermal conductivity
[101]. According to their investigation, it was found that the
thermal conductivity ratios obtained by using the above two ar-
tificial intelligence algorithm agreed well with the corresponding
experimental data.
As a function of temperature, volume fraction and diameter of
Al2O3 nanoparticle, Ariana et al. [102] developed and validated an
ANN model (as illustrated in Fig. 9) to estimate the thermal con-
ductivity ratio of Al2O3-water nanofluids. Based on the statistical
accuracy analysis, the architecture of ANN was determined to be
3-14-1. As reported in their study, the developed ANN model could
predict the experimental data with the absolute average relative
deviation (AARD%) of 1.27%, mean square error (MSE) of
4.73
10  4 and regression coefficient (R2) of 0.971875. According
to the comparison between ANN and many recommended corre-
lations in the literatures, it was confirmed that ANN model was
more superior to other published works.
To further verify the effectiveness of ANN on the modeling and
prediction of nanofluids thermal conductivity, Esfe et al. [103–109]
respectively designed different multi-layer perceptions (MLP) feed
forward networks for various nanofluids (such as MgO-EG, ZnO-
EG, Cu/TiO2-water/EG, Mg(OH)2-EG, MgO-water/EG (60:40) and
MWCNTs-water). All of their studies showed that ANN was a po-
tential tool to effectively solve the prediction problem of nano-
fluids thermal conductivity.
Attracted by the better nonlinear mapping ability, Yousefi et al.
[110] extended the ANN based modeling approach to the predic-
tion of nanofluids relative viscosity of nanofluids, such as CuO-
propylene glycol/water, CuO-ethylene glycol/water, SiO2-water,
602 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Fig. 7. Schematic view of the ANN nanofluids thermal conductivity models: (a) 4-
input complete model, and (b) 3-input reduced model [99].
Fig. 8. Combination of genetic algorithm and GMDH-type polynomial neural net-
work approaches [101].
SiO2-ethanol, Al2O3-water, and TiO2-water. As reported in their
investigation, diffusional neural networks (DNN) exhibited good
modeling and prediction performance in comparison of many
existing theoretical models. Considering the effects of nanoparticle
volume fraction, temperature and nanoparticle size, Mehrabi et al.
[111] investigated the application of artificial intelligence model on
the viscosity prediction of four water-based nanofluids (Al2O3,
CuO, TiO2 and SiO2) by using 536 experimental data. From their
analysis and comparison, it was demonstrated that the developed
FCM-ANFIS models could effectively predict the enhanced char-
acteristics of nanofluids viscosity.
In the study of Zhao et al. [112], a novel viscosity prediction
approach using Radial basis function (RBF) neural networks was
introduced. Based on the analysis on the influencing factors of
nanofluids viscosity, nanoparticle volume fraction, nanoparticle
size and temperature were chosen as the input parameters of RBF
neural networks and the output parameter was the viscosity ratio
between nanofluids and base fluid. According to their analysis, it
could be seen that the predicted viscosity by using RBF neural
network were closer to the experimental data than those by many
theoretical models. Besides, it was also found that RBF neural
networks could well predict the variations of nanofluids relative
viscosity with temperature, volume fraction and size of nano-
particle. On this basis, Zhao et al. [113] proposed two RBF neural
networks (one with 5 input variables, the other with 4 input
variables) for analyzing the effects of input parameter on the
prediction performance of ANN. As shown in Fig. 10, both the
above models taken into account the effects of nanoparticle vo-
lume fraction, nanoparticle diameter, nanoparticle density and the
viscosity of base fluid, while the 5-input model also considered the
effect of temperature. The proposed models were evaluated using
the experimental data of Al2O3-water and CuO-water nanofluids
that have been published in the literatures. The results demon-
strated that RBF neural networks could be used with satisfactory
accuracy for predicting the Al2O3-water nanofluids viscosity
(RMSE ¼9.078
10  5, MAPE ¼2.673%, SSE¼4.327
10  6, R2 ¼
0.9962) and CuO-water nanofluids viscosity (RMSE ¼3.623
10  5,
MAPE ¼1.067%, SSE ¼2.572
10  7, R2 ¼ 0.9998). The study also
showed that the prediction performance of RBF neural networks
would improve when including temperature in the input vector.
In addition, Karimi and Yousefi [114] developed a back-propa-
gation (BP) neural network to predict the density of five different
nanofluids. To effectively improve the prediction performance of
BP neural network, genetic algorithm (GA) was used to realize the
optimization of BP neural network structure and the other related
parameters. Their investigation indicated that by using the de-
veloped BP-GA model, the density of nanofluids could be predicted
satisfactorily with lower absolute deviation (0.13%) and higher
correlation coefficient (RZ0.98). Moreover, it was also found from
their results that the BP-GA model outperformed to the traditional
model developed by Pak and Cho and RBF neural network for the
prediction of nanofluids density.
At present, research about the data-driven modeling and pre-
diction of nanofluids thermalphysical properties based on ANN is
still in its infancy, even if many valuable literatures have demon-
strated the effectiveness of different ANN models. As discussed in
the present paper, most of the published researches are focused on
multilayer perception neural networks due to its simple. The
studies involving the other ANN models (such as probabilistic
neural network, self-organizing map, wavelet neural network and
generalized regression neural network) are very limited. Hence, it
is very necessary to comprehensively compare the prediction
performance of different ANN, which can help to understand and
evaluate the potential apply values of ANN in nanofluids. Besides,
there seems to be no universal way to determine the structure of
ANN for the modeling and prediction of nanofluids thermo-
physical property. The most widely used methodology is trial and
error. However, the method of trial and error is usually time-
consuming and the obtained ANN models may not be the optimal
ones. Concerning this issue, more intelligence algorithms such as
particle swarm optimization (PSO), GA and ant colony (AC) may be
the potential methods for effectively optimizing the ANN models.
 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Fig. 9. Architecture of the proposed ANN model in the study of [102].
In addition, training samples data is one of the most important
factors that affect the prediction performance of ANN. However, no
work has been devoted to investigate the effect of samples data on
ANN modeling of nanofluids thermalphysical properties. As a no-
vel machine learning technique based on the statistical learning
theory, Support Vector Machine (SVM) is very useful to solve the
nonlinear problems of small samples. Therefore, it is valuable to
further propose new data-driven approach to replace ANN for
predicting the thermalphysical properties of nanofluids.
4. Flow and heat transfer performance of nanofluids in auto-
motive radiator
In practice, thermal-hydraulic analysis is one of the major
concerns for the application of nanofluids in automotive radiator.
Due to the advantage of nanofluids in higher thermal conductivity,
a large number of researches have been investigated to study the
enhancement performance of nanofluids heat transfer. However, it
is worth pointing out that the suspensions of nanoparticles also
can increase the viscosity and decrease the specific heat, which
mean that the improvement of nanofluids in thermal conductivity
may be counteracted by the negative effects of viscosity and spe-
cific heat [115–117]. Hence, a further research for quantifying the
flow and heat transfer characteristics of various types of heat
transfer structure with nanofluids as working fluid is needed. This
section focus on discussing the application of nanofluids in auto-
motive radiator based on available literatures.
4.1. Experimental investigations
Kannan et al. [118] experimentally studied the influence of
different parameters like nanoparticle volume fraction, inlet tem-
perature and mass flow rate of Al2O3-water nanofluids on the heat
transfer characteristics of an automotive radiator. Their results
indicated that the addition of Al2O3 nanoparticles could effectively
improve the heat transfer performance due to the improved
thermal conductivity of nanofluids. For example, at constant flow
rate of coolant (0.1 kg/s), an increase of 24% and 49% in total of
heat transferred was observed with 0.25% and 0.50% nanofluids
fractions. Besides, they also observed that the total heat transfer
603
performance of radiator would increase with the increases of inlet
temperature, mass flow rate and nanoparticle volume fraction.
Chougule and Sahu [119] measured the enhanced heat transfer
characteristics of automobile radiator (Fig. 11) with the working
mediums of CNT-water and Al2O3-water nanofluids. As reported in
their study, both the nanoparticle volume fraction and nanofluids
flow rate could obviously affect the heat transfer performance of
automobile radiator. The maximum heat transfer enhancements
were respective 90.76% and 52.03% for CNT-water and Al2O3-water
when the nanoparticle fraction was 1.0 vol%. Besides, since the
carbon nanotubes had higher thermal conductivity, CNT-water
nanofluids exhibited better heat transfer than Al2O3-water nano-
fluids under the same operating condition. On the basis of the
study mentioned above, they also experimentally found that the
surface treating of carbon nanotubes could weaken the enhance-
ment degree of convective heat transfer of CNT based nanofluids
[120].
Nieh et al. [121] reported the heat transfer and flow char-
acteristics of an air-cooled radiator by using Al2O3 and TiO2 na-
nofluids. Fig. 12 showed the experimental setup used in their
study. According to the experimental analysis, it was clearly found
that the heat dissipation capacities of nanofluids were higher than
those of the corresponding base fluid, and the heat transfer en-
hancement was more obvious for TiO2 nanofluids. The maximum
increments were approximately 25.6%, 6.1%, 2.5% and 27.2% for the
heat dissipation capacity, pressure drop, pumping power and ef-
ficiency factor, respectively. Moreover, they also found that the
enhanced percentage of the average efficiency factor increased by
increasing the TiO2 nanoparticle fraction and volumetric flow rate,
but the increments of the pressure drop and pumping power were
not very obvious affected by above two factors.
Based on the experimental setup shown in Fig. 13, Vermah-
moudi et al. [122] performed an investigation to evaluate the la-
minar heat transfer of Fe2O3-water nanofluids in an air-finned heat
exchanger. In their studies, the maximum increments of 13% for
the overall heat transfer coefficient and 11.5% for the heat transfer
rate were obtained respectively when the nanoparticles con-
centration was 0.65 vol%. Besides, by detailed discussing the ef-
fects of nanofluids Reynolds number (from 200 to 1000), air
Reynolds number (from 500 to 700), nanofluids inlet temperature
(50, 65 and 80 °C) and nanoparticle concentration (0.15, 0.4 and
604 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616

Fig. 10. The structures of RBF neural networks with different input: (a) 5-input model, and (b) 4-input model [113].

0.65 vol%), they also demonstrated that with the increases of na-
nofluids flow rate, nanoparticle concentration and the Reynolds
number of air, both the overall heat transfer coefficient and the
heat transfer rate could be enhanced. For the inlet temperature, its
increase could improve the heat transfer rate of nanofluids but
decrease the overall heat transfer coefficient.
Considering the enhanced heat transfer of nanofluids in auto-
mobile radiator, Bhimani et al. [123] measured the convective heat
transfer coefficients of TiO2-water nanofluids at different fractions
(0.1–1 vol%) and flow rates (90, 100, 110 and 120 l/min). As re-
ported in their study, the presence of TiO2 nanoparticle could
significantly increase the heat transfer performance of automobile
radiator that using the base fluid. For example, about 40–45% in-
crements in the heat transfer were obtained when dispersing
1 vol% of TiO2 nanoparticles into water. Ultimately, they also in-
dicated that besides the enhancement of nanofluids thermal
conductivity, the heat and mass transfer contributed by the
Brownian motion of nanoparticles was worthy of attention.
To investigate the effects of Al2O3 nanoparticle concentration,
nanofluids inlet temperatures and flow rates on the convective
heat transfer behaviors of flat aluminum tubes used in car radiator,
Peyghambarzadeh et al. [124] carried out an experimental study
which was shown in Fig. 14. Their results demonstrated that the
suspensions of Al2O3 nanoparticle clearly enhanced the heat
transfer of water and ethylene glycol. The maximum increments of
nanofluids Nusselt number was approximately 40% in comparison
with that of the base fluid. Besides, their experimental results also
indicated that compared to the temperature, nanoparticle con-
centration and nanofluids flow rates showed the apparent influ-
ences on the heat transfer characteristics of Al2O3 based
nanofluids.
Then, selecting CuO-water and Fe2O3-water as working fluids,
 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Fig. 11. Schematic diagram of the test facility [119].
Fig. 12. Experimental setup for heat dissipation measurement [121].
605
Peyghambarzadeh et al. [125] experimentally evaluated the lami-
nar heat transfer performance of automobile radiator with differ-
ent operating environments. Results demonstrated that the overall
heat transfer coefficients of both the above two water based na-
nofluids were higher than those of the base fluid. The maximum
increment was up to 9%. Besides, according to their analysis, it was
also indicated that the overall heat transfer coefficient of nano-
fluids could be enhanced as increasing nanoparticle volume frac-
tion, nanofluids and air velocity and decreasing the inlet tem-
perature of nanofluids. In another study of Peyghambarzadeh et al.
[126], the convective heat transfer behaviors of Al2O3-water na-
nofluids in an automobile radiator have been measured under fully
turbulent regime (9000 oReo23,000). They also obtained the
similar conclusion that the suspension of Al2O3 nanoparticles
could effectively improve the heat transfer of the working medium
without nanoparticles.
Hussein et al. [127] detailed discussed the thermal energy ef-
fectiveness of a car radiator by respectively using the TiO2-water
and SiO2-water nanofluids through experimental method (Fig. 15).
The visible enhancement could be obtained for the heat transfer
rate with the increase of nanoparticles concentration. There were
20% and 32% of the energy rate enhancement and 24% and 29.5%
effectiveness enhancement for TiO2 and SiO2 nanofluids, respec-
tively. The experimental results also indicated that the Nusselt
number behavior of the nanofluids was highly depended on the
nanoparticle volume fraction and volume flow rate. In another
investigation of Hussein et al. [128,129], they also experimentally
discussed the effects of nanoparticle volume fraction, volume flow
rate and inlet temperature on the forced convection heat transfer
of water based nanofluids inside the flat copper tubes of an au-
tomotive cooling system. Their results showed that under laminar
flow conditions, the Nusselt number could increase with volume
flow rate and slightly increased with inlet temperature and na-
nofluid volume concentration. The maximum enhancements in
Nusselt number were up to 11% and 22.5% for TiO2-water and SiO2-
606 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616

Fig. 13. The schematic of experimental setup shown in [122].

Fig. 14. (A) Schematic of experimental set up. (B) Schematic drawing of the applied louvered fin and flat tube radiator and their dimensions [124].
 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Fig. 15. Schematic of experimental setup [127].
water nanofluids, respectively.
Naraki et al. [130] experimentally investigated the overall heat
transfer coefficient of CuO-water nanofluids in a car radiator and
discussed the effects of air volumetric flow rates, nanoparticle
volume fraction, inlet temperatures and volumetric flow rates of
nanofluids in detail. From their study, it could be seen that the
overall heat transfer coefficient of nanofluid was more than that of
the base fluid. At the nanoparticle concentrations of 0.15 and
0.4 vol%, the overall heat transfer coefficient enhancements were
6% and 8%, respectively. Based on the Taguchi method, they also
found that the air volumetric flow rate, nanofluids volumetric flow
rate, nanofluids inlet temperature and nanoparticle concentration
respectively had 42%, 23%, 22% and 13% contributions in the en-
hancements of nanofluids heat transfer.
Chavan et al. [131] measured the convective heat transfer
coefficients of Al2O3-water nanofluids in an automobile radiator.
Fig. 16. The experimental setup shown in [132].
607
As reported in their investigation, the experimental heat transfer
enhancements were higher than the results obtained by using the
Dittus Boelter correlation. Based on the experimental set up as
shown in Fig. 16, Heris et al. [132] performed a study to discuss the
heat transfer performance of a car radiator with CuO-EG/water as
a coolant. Their conclusion drawn was consistent with the results
of the other literatures that the application of nanofluids brought a
new way to the heat transfer enhancement.
In the study of Ali et al. [133], an experimental investigation
was implemented to the convective heat transfer behavior of an
aluminum car radiator with ZnO-water nanofluids as working
fluids. Fig. 17 presented the experimental system and test bed.
Their results showed that the convection heat transfer of base fluid
could be enhanced by suspending ZnO nanoparticles and the heat
transfer enhancements of nanofluids were dependent on the vo-
lumetric concentration of nanoparticle. The maximum heat
transfer increment was up to 46% at 0.2 vol%. However, a decrease
in heat transfer enhancement was found when the nanoparticle
volume fraction was higher than 0.2%. Besides, only 4% heat
transfer enhancement could be obtained when increasing the inlet
temperature from 45 °C to 55 °C, which means that the heat
transfer rates were weakly dependent on the fluid inlet tempera-
ture. Table 1 summarizes the related experimental studies on the
application of various nanofluids in automotive radiator.
4.2. Theoretical and numerical investigations
Besides experimental studies, several researchers have done
many efforts on the theoretical study to understand the superior
characteristic of nanofluids in the automotive radiator. Based on the
effectiveness-number of transfer unit (ε-NTU) theory, Ray et al.
[139] compared the thermal-hydraulic performance of automobile
radiators with three different nanofluids respectively suspending
Al2O3, CuO, and SiO2 nanoparticles in the mixture of ethylene glycol
and water (60:40 by mass). Through detailed discussing the influ-
ences of several typical parameters including the nanoparticle
608 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Fig. 17. (a) Schematic of the system used in experimentation, and (b) Test bed used
in the present investigation [133].
properties and the operating condition of automobile radiators,
they indicated that nanofluids with low particle concentration
could perform better comprehensive performance due to the sub-
stantial increase of nanofluids viscosity at high nanoparticle con-
centration. As illustrated in Fig. 18, their investigation found that the
application of Al2O3-water nanofluids could effectively decrease
35.3% of pumping power or 7.4% of surface area when the heat
transfer rate was constant. Meanwhile, for CuO-water and SiO2-
water nanofluids, the corresponding decrements were 33.1% and
26.2% in the pumping power or 7.2% and 5.2% in the surface area.
Selecting the Cu-ethylene glycol nanofluids as working med-
ium, Leong et al. [140] theoretically analyzed the heat transfer
behavior of a car radiator. As reported in their study, the heat
transfer rate of nanofluids increased significantly when the vo-
lume fraction of Cu nanoparticles ranged from 0% to 2%. Under the
operating conditions of air Reynolds number of 6000 and fluid
Reynolds number of 5000, the heat transfer increment of nano-
fluids was up to 3.8%. Besides, they found that air Reynolds
number exhibited more obvious effect on the thermal perfor-
mance of radiator in comparison with nanofluids Reynolds num-
ber. For example, the increments of radiator heat transfer were
45.2% and 42.7% for the 2 vol% nanofluids and base fluid with the
increase of air Reynolds number from 4000 to 6000. But only 0.4%
and 0.9% heat transfer increments were obtained when the Rey-
nolds number of fluid ranged from 5000 to 7000.
Recently, with the rapid growth of computational capabilities,
some numerical studies have been performed to capture and ex-
plain the thermal-hydraulic behaviors of nanofluids in the typical
heat transfer structure of automotive radiator. Based on the single-
phase numerical approach, Vajjha et al. [141] discussed the laminar
thermal-hydraulic characteristics of Al2O3 and CuO nanofluids
through the flat tubes (Fig. 19) of an automobile radiator. The base
fluid was mixture of ethylene glycol and water (60:40 by mass). As
shown in their study, both the average heat transfer coefficient and
average Nusselt number could be improved by increasing the vo-
lume fraction of nanoparticle and nanofluids Reynolds number. And
the influence of the Reynolds number was stronger. Besides, due to
the increase of viscosity, the suspension of Al2O3 and CuO nano-
particle resulted in the increase of the skin friction coefficient. For
example, at the inlet velocity of 0.3952 m/s, the average skin friction
coefficient of CuO nanofluids with the concentration of 6% was
about 2.75 times as much as that of the base fluid. Moreover,
through the comprehensive evaluation, they found that the
pumping power of nanofluids would be decreased with the increase
of nanoparticle concentration when the heat transfers of various
fluids were constant. The maximum reductions were 82.5% and
77.4% for Al2O3 and CuO nanofluids, respectively.
Also using the single-phase approach and geometric config-
uration shown in Fig. 19, Vajjha et al. [142] numerically analyzed
the effects of nanoparticle properties and Reynolds number on the
turbulent flow thermal-hydraulic performance of nanofluids in the
flat tube. Similarly, they indicated that EG/Water (60:40 by mass)
nanofluids dispersing Al2O3 and CuO exhibited significant increase
in the average heat transfer coefficient and skin friction coefficient
when the volume fraction of nanoparticle changed from 0% to 6%.
However, it was worth pointing out that unlike the results in the
study of [141], the pumping power of base fluid could be reduced
only suspending lower concentration of nanoparticles
(Al2O3:3 vol%, CuO:2 vol%).
Under the constant heat flux boundary condition, Huminic et al.
[143] presented a numerical investigation to analyze the laminar
heat transfer enhancement of CuO-ethylene glycol nanofluids in the
flattened tube of automotive radiator. They detailed discussed the
variations of heat transfer coefficient of flattened tube with several
factors including the volume fraction of nanoparticle (0–4%) and
nanoparticle Brownian motions under the low Reynolds number
(10-125). The single-phase based numerical results have shown that
considering the contribution of nanoparticle Brownian motions in
the heat and mass enhancement, the convective heat transfer
coefficient of CuO-ethylene glycol nanofluids improved obviously as
the nanoparticle volume fraction increased. According to their
study, about 19% increments could be obtained at Reynolds number
of 10 and nanoparticle of 4 vol%. Besides, since the increments of
nanofluids convective heat transfer coefficient were lower than
those of thermal conductivity, their obtained Nusselt number would
decrease with the increase of nanoparticle volume fraction when Re
was larger than 10. In addition, as shown in Fig. 20, they also in-
dicated that compared to the circular and elliptic tubes, flattened
tubes exhibited better heat transfer performance by using the CuO-
ethylene glycol nanofluids as the coolant.
To further understand the thermal-hydraulic performance of
SiO2-water nanofluids in automotive radiator, the numerical and
experimental investigations also were carried out by Hussein et al.
[129]. Their results demonstrated that both the Nusselt number
and friction factor could be significantly depended on the volume
fraction of nanoparticle and Reynolds number. The maximum
enhancements were 44% and 22% for the experimental Nusselt
number and friction factor, respectively. Meanwhile, there were
obvious deviations between the experimental data and numerical
results obtained by single-phase model.
For the single-phase numerical approach of nanofluids, the
selection of thermophysical properties is one of the most im-
portant factors that affecting the numerical accuracy. For this case,
Zhao et al. [144] developed new thermal conductivity correlation
and viscosity correlation for Al2O3-water nanofluids in con-
siderations of nanoparticles properties (concentration and size)
 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616 609

Table 1
List of the main works on the application of various nanofluids in automotive radiator.

Authors Nanofluids type Particle size Volume frac- Working condition Results
(nm) tion (%) (flow rate, Tin)

Kannan et al. [118] Al2O3-water 45 0.25, 0.5 0.05–0.15 kg/s, At constant flow rate of 0.10 kg/s, total heat transfer were en-
35–59 °C hanced up to 24% and 49% for 0.25% and 0.50% nanofluids
concentrations.
Chougule and Sahu [119] CNT-water, 20–30, 0.15–1 2–5 l/min, Compared with water, the maximum heat transfer performances
Al2O3-water o100 90 °C for 1% nanoparticle concentration were found to be 90.76% and
52.03% higher for CNT-water and Al2O3-water, respectively.
Chougule and Sahu [120] CNT-water 20–30 0.15–1 2–5 l/min, For 1.0 vol% nanoparticle concentration and coolant flow rate of
900 °C 5 l/min, the maximum enhancement in heat transfer of FCNT-
water nanofluid was found to be 90.76% higher compared with
water.
Nieh et al. [121] Al2O3-EG/Wa, 10–20, 0.5–2.0 wt% 4.5–8.5 l/min Compared with EG/W, the maximum enhanced ratios of heat
TiO2-EG/Wa 20–30 80–95 °C dissipation capacity, pressure drop, pumping power, and EF for
all the experimental parameters in this study are approximately
25.6%, 6.1%, 2.5%, and 27.2%, respectively
Vermahmoudi et al. [122] Fe2O3-water 40 0.15, 0.4, 0.65 0.2–0.5 m3/h, Application of nanofluid with 0.65 vol% concentration can en-
50–80 °C hance the overall heat transfer coefficient up to 13% and the heat
transfer rate up to 11.5% comparing with the distilled water.
Bhimani et al. [123] TiO2-water 15 0.1–1 90–120 l/min, At the concentration of 1 vol%, the heat transfer enhancement of
80 °C 40–45% compared to pure water.
Peyghambarzadeh et al. Al2O3-water, 20 0–1 2–5 l/min, A highest Nusselt number enhancement up to 40% was obtained
[124] at the best conditions for both nanofluids.
Al2O3-EG 35–50 °C,
3–6 l/min,
45–60 °C
Peyghambarzadeh et al. CuO-water, 0–0.65 0.05–0.14 l/s, At the concentration of 0.65 vol%, the heat transfer enhancement
[125] Fe2O3-water 50–80 °C were about 9% and 7% for Fe2O3-water and CuO-water nano-
fluids, respectively.
Peyghambarzadeh et al. Al2O3-water 20 0.1–1 2–5 l/min, By the addition of only 1 vol% of Al2O3 nanoparticle into the
[126] 37–49 °C purewater, an increase of about 30–45% in comparison with the
pure water heat transfer coefficient was recorded.
Hussein et al. [127] TiO2-water 30 1–2.5 0.5–8 l/min A highest Nusselt number have been recorded up to 16.4 and
SiO2-water 80 °C 17.85 for TiO2-water and SiO2-water, respectively.
Hussein et al. [128] TiO2-water 30 1–2 2–8 l/min, Maximum Nusselt number enhancements of up to 11% and 22.5%
SiO2-water 60–80 °C were obtained for TiO2 and SiO2 nanoparticles, respectively.
Hussein et al. [129] SiO2-water 30 1–2.5 2–8 l/min, Application of SiO2 nanofluid with low concentrations can en-
60–80 °C hance heat transfer rate up to 50% as a comparison with pure
water.
Naraki et al. [130] CuO-water 60 0–0.4 0.2–0.5 m3/h, Nanofluid volumetric flow rate, inlet temperature and con-
50–80 °C centration of nanofluid have 23%, 22% and 13% contribution in
the overall heat transfer coefficient of CuO-water nanofluids,
respectively.
Chavan and Pise [131] Al2O3-water 20 0–1 3–8 l/min, The application of the nanofluid with low concentration can
40–80 °C enhance heat transfer efficiency up to 40–45% in comparison
with pure water.
Heris et al. [132] CuO-EG/Wb 60 0.05–0.8 4–8 l/min, In the best condition, the heat transfer coefficient enhancement
35–54 °C of about 55% compared to the base fluid was recorded.
Ali et al. [133] ZnO-water 20 0.01–0.3 7–11 l/min, The best heat transfer enhancement up to 46% was found com-
45–55 °C pared to base fluid at 0.2% volumetric concentration.
Ramaraju et al. [134] MWCNTS-EG/Wc 0.02 2–6 l/min, The improvement in the performance of an automobile radiator
39–95 °C has been very encouraging with an improvement of around 30%.
Senthilraja et al. [135] CuO-water 0–1 2–5 l/min Nusselt number was enhanced by increasing the nanoparticle
fraction and nanofluids velocity.
b
Samira et al. [136] CuO-EG/W 60 0–0.8 4–8 l/min, Compared to the base fluid, the pressure drop was increased by
35–54 °C about 15%, 20% and 23% under the same Reynolds number with
0.1%, 0.3% and 0.5% nanofluid fraction, respectively.
Ravisankar et al. [137] CuO-water 40 0.025, 0.05 1–15 l/min, The best operating conditions include minimum temperature,
(40 nm, %) 50–60 °C maximum concentration of nanofluid, maximum flow rate of
nanofluid and maximum flow rate of air.
Ali et al. [138] MgO-water 20 0.06, 0.09 and 8–16 l/min, The maximum observed heat transfer enhancement of MgO
0.12 56–64 °C nanofluid was 1.31.

a
EG/water:50:50.
b
EG/water:60:40.
c
EG/water:40:60.

and temperature. On the above basis, a single-phase based nu-
merical investigation was performed to analyze the laminar heat
transfer and flow performance of Al2O3-water nanofluids in a flat
tube. Fig. 21 shows the geometric parameters and computational
domain of flat tube. As analyzed in their investigation, the varia-
tions of Al2O3 nanoparticle properties, nanofluids inlet tempera-
ture and geometrical parameters of flat tube could significantly
affect the thermal-hydraulic behavior of nanofluids. The en-
hancements in both heat transfer and press drop would be in-
creased with the increases of nanoparticle concentration and
temperature and the decreases of nanoparticle size and Reynolds
number. Besides, they also provided an entropy generation ana-
lysis to evaluate the overall thermal-hydraulic performance of
Al2O3-water nanofluids in flat tube. Their results reported that the
610 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616

Fig. 18. Nanofluids performance for best and worst case scenarios for reduction in pumping power or surface area of a radiator [139].

To evaluate the performance of single and two-phase ap-

Fig. 19. Dimensions and coordinate system of flat tube used in the numerical study
[141].
thermal entropy generation was the main part caused irreversi-
bility. And the increase of nanoparticle volume concentration and
nanoparticle size can decrease the total entropy generation of
Al2O3-water nanofluids in a flat tube. Moreover, compared to the
tube flattening, nanoparticle volume fraction has a slight influence
on the relative thermal–hydraulic performance between flat tubes
and circular tube.
proaches, Delavari et al. [145] respectively studied the laminar and
turbulent heat transfer behaviors of two Al2O3 based nanofluids in
the flat tube shown in Fig. 22. Their numerical results showed that
compared to the single-phase numerical approach, two-phase
approach could better predicted the Nusselt number of nanofluids.
However, for the friction factors, the results obtained by different
numerical approach were unanimous basically. Also, they found
that due to the decrease of volumetric flow, more pumping power
were reduced at a constant heat transfer rate.
In the study of Safikhani and Abbassi [146], the mixture model
was used to numerically analyze the effects of tube flattening
(Fig. 23) on the laminar thermal-hydraulic characteristics of Al2O3-
water nanofluids. Their results detected that the non-uniformity of
nanoparticles was strengthened with the increase of tube flat-
tening. On this basis, to better improve the comprehensive per-
formance of nanofluids in the flat tubes, they also performed a
multi-objective optimization by using the theories of CFD, ANN

Fig. 20. Comparison of the heat transfer coefficient for different tubes [143].
 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616
Fig. 21. (a) Geometric parameters and (b) computational domain of flat tube [144].
Fig. 22. Dimensions of flat tube used in the numerical study of [145] (A) side
view, and (B) top view.
and GA [147].
According to the summary shown in Table 2, we can know
clearly that most of the numerical studies in flat tube are performed
by using single-phase approach. However, a number of credible
studies have demonstrated that the effects of slip motion occurring
between solid and liquid phases could not be neglected in the heat
transfer structures of circular tube [148–152], microchannels [153]
and heat exchangers [154]. This may means that more analysis of
different numerical approaches and the comparisons of the nu-
merical simulation with the experimental results are necessary to
effectively describe the flow and heat transfer behavior of nano-
fluids in the flat tube of automotive radiator.
Besides, there were some different observations about the ef-
fects of nanoparticle concentration on the Nusselt number even if
the enhanced heat transfer were found in all of the numerical
investigations. For example, the results obtained by Vajjha et al.
[141] showed that the Nusselt number for the CuO-EG/W
611
nanofluids was lower than that of the base fluid up to 2 vol%, and
the Nusselt number was higher for higher concentrations of na-
nofluids. However, Huminic et al. [143] found that the Nusselt
number of CuO-ethylene glycol nanofluids could decrease with the
increase of nanoparticle volume fraction when the Reynolds
number ranged from 25 to 125. One of the main reasons was that
they selected the different thermophysical properties models,
which can be seen in Table 3.
Moreover, as reviewed in the above, the heat transfer en-
hancement of nanofluids in flat tube was usually achieved at the
expense of higher pressure drop. This means that the improve-
ment in thermal conductivity of nanofluids may be counteracted
by the negative effects of viscosity. Vajjha et al. [141,142] and
Delavari et al. [145] respectively compared the overall perfor-
mances of nanofluids in flat tube with different nanoparticle vo-
lume fraction at a fixed heat transfer coefficient. But they obtained
different results. According to the analysis of Vajjha et al. [141,142],
the pumping power consumed by Al2O3 and CuO nanofluids were
decreased by suspending a higher concentration of nanoparticle
when the Reynolds number ranged from 100 to 2000, while Al2O3
nanofluids reduced pumping power only below a volume fraction
of 3% under the turbulent flow. However, Delavari et al. [145]
found that the pumping power of Al2O3 nanofluids decreased
obviously as nanoparticle volume fraction increased under whe-
ther laminar or turbulent flow. Therefore, the further research for
quantifying the overall thermal-hydraulic performance of nano-
fluids in flat tube is needed.
5. Conclusions
In view of the shortages of theoretical models and empirical
correlations for effectively predicting the thermalphysical prop-
erties of nanofluids, this paper summarizes the recent investiga-
tions on data-driven modeling of nanofluids thermalphysical
properties at first time. Meanwhile, to provide a better under-
standing of the potential applications of nanofluids in automotive
radiator, a comprehensive review is presented from the views of
experiment, theory and numerical simulation. The main conclu-
sions can be briefly drawn as follows:
 By analyzing the available experimental data published in var-
ious literatures, it was demonstrated that both thermal con-
ductivity and viscosity of base fluid could be improved with the
suspension of solid nanoparticles. Unfortunately, considering
the differences in preparation technology, measuring and data
analyzing methods, the effects of nanoparticle type, tempera-
ture, nanoparticle volume fraction and size on above two
properties were not completely consistent. Thus more com-
prehensive experimental analyses are needed to benefit the
mechanism modeling of nanofluids thermal conductivity and
 

[146].
Fig. 23. Dimensions of five flat tube cross sections in the numerical simulations

612
malphysical properties may mainly focused on the selection of
future challenges of data-driven modeling of nanofluids ther-
nanofluids under the condition of enough large samples. The
fective approach to predict the thermalphysical properties of
The findings from the literatures showed that ANN was an ef-
viscosity.

N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616

Table 2
Summary of the numerical studies on flow and heat transfer of nanofluids in flat tube.

Authors Nanofluids Approach Re Results

a a
Vajjha et al. [141] Al2O3-EG/W , CuO-EG/W single-phase laminar Compared to nanoparticle concentration, Reynolds number has a stronger enhancement on heat transfer. For the
same amount of heat transfer, nanofluids require lower pumping power than base fluid.
Vajjha et al. [142] Al2O3-EG/W, CuO-EG/W single-phase turbulent Under the basis of equal pumping power, Al2O3 and CuO nanofluids up to 3% and 2% particle volume fraction re-
spectively provide higher heat transfer coefficients than that of the base fluid.
Huminic et al. [143] CuO-EG single-phase laminar The heat transfer coefficient enhanced with increase in the nanoparticle concentration, Brownian motion, Reynolds
number and the tube flattening.
Hussein et al. [129] SiO2-water single-phase laminar Friction factor and Nusselt number action of nanofluids were highly depended on the volume fraction of nano-
particle and Reynolds number.
Zhao et al. [144] Al2O3-water single-phase laminar Compared to the tube flattening, nanoparticle volume fraction has a slight effect on the relative thermal-hydraulic
performance between flat tubes and circular tube.
Delavari et al. [145] Al2O3-water, Al2O3-EG single-phase, two-phase (mixture turbulent, laminar Two-phase approach has better prediction for nanofluids Nusselt number.
model)
Safikhani et al. [146] Al2O3-water two-phase (mixture model) laminar The nanoparticle distribution is an important parameter in fluid dynamic and heat transfer performance of nano-
fluids for all the flat tubes.

a
EG/water:50:50.
 N. Zhao et al. / Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 66 (2016) 596–616 613

Table 3
Summary of the thermal conductivity and viscosity model for the numerical studies of nanofluids in flat tube.

Authors Thermal conductivity model Viscosity

Vajjha et al. [141,142] kp + 2kbf − 2φp(kbf − kp) μnf

k nf = kbf + 5 × 104βφpρbf Cpbf κT
f (T , φp) = Ae(cφp)
kp + 2kbf + φp(kbf − kp) ρp dp μbf

Huminic et al. [143] kp + 2kbf − 2φp(kbf − kp) κT μbf kBrowianμbf

k nf = kbf + 5 × 104βφpρbf Cpbf f (T , φp) μnf = +
kp + 2kbf + φp(kbf − kp) ρp dp (1 − φp)2.5 kbf Prbf

Zhao et al. [144] B ⎛ ⎞−0.00463 24.662 + 2.316φp − 0.4959φp2

Rep
μnf = − 0.3513 + 0.462φp − 0.135φp2 + 0.0125φp3 +
k nf = 1.698φpA ( ) Pr
T
273
0.0645 −0.106
p Pr bf × ⎜⎜
⎝
⎟⎟
NBRp ⎠
kbf T − 273
φp2 995.388 − 3205.016φp 8.667φp2
+ 30.979 + +
(T − 273)2 (T − 273)3 (T − 273)3
φp ⎡
+ 2⎣ p
dp
d ( 3.937 − 1.194φ )+φ ( 20.502 − 0.8086φ )⎤⎦
p p p

Delavari et al. [145] kp + (n − 1)kbf + (n − 1)φp(kp − kbf ) 2

ρp VBdp
k nf = kbf μnf = μbf +
kp + (n − 1)kbf − φp(kp − kbf ) 72Cδ
Safikhani et al. [146] knf 0.369 0.7476 2
ρp VBdp
= 64.7φp0.746 ( dbf /dp) ( kp/kbf ) × Pr0.9955
bf
Re1.2321
bf
+1 μnf = μbf +
kbf 72Cδ

ANN type, the optimization of ANN structure and the new ar-
tificial intelligence algorithm which can solve the prediction
problem with small samples.
 According to the experimental results, it could be concluded that
nanofluids was a potential working medium for enhancing the
heat transfer of automotive radiator. However, the presences of
nanoparticles usually improved the pressure drop, which might
limit the efficiency factor of automotive radiator. Besides, due to
the lack of standardization among different studies, there were
some discrepancies in the percentage of enhancement and the
optimum amount of nanoparticles. Therefore, more careful and
systematic investigations on the experimental studies are needed
for evaluating the practical application values of nanofluids in the
automotive radiator with various conditions.
 For the numerical investigations, both the amount of literature
and the depth of understanding were still not very enough.
Considering the obstacles in the aspect of thermalphysical
properties and numerical approach, mechanisms involved in
the flow and heat transport phenomena are remain not fully
understood yet. Meanwhile, many contradictory results about
the influences of nanoparticle concentration on Nusselt number
and pumping power were found in the published literatures.
For these cases, further analysis of different numerical ap-
proaches and the comparisons of the numerical simulation with
the experimental results are necessary in order to clearly un-
derstand the hydrodynamic and thermal behavior of nanofluids
in the flat tube of automotive radiator.
 In practice, in order to promote the development of nanofluids
in engine cooling areas, the preparation of nanofluids and the
stability of nanoparticle are two uppermost factors that must be
considered and solved. Besides, considering the fact that auto-
motive product is extremely sensitive to cost increment, it is
very necessary to provide more attention on the cost issues
associated with nanofluids application as automotive radiator in
the future study. If the trade-offs between performance en-
hancement of automotive radiator and nanofluids cost cannot
be well justified, the application of nanofluids as radiator may
be quite limited.
Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the finance supported by the Fun-
damental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Nos.
HEUCF160306 and HEUCF160307).
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