Superconducting Material Cooling Using Buoyancy Driven Heat Transport in Cryogenic Nanofluids

Abstract

Numerous computational, experimental, and analytical studies have demonstrated that nanofluids have improved heat-carrying capabilities at ordinary operating temperatures (room temperature and above). Still, not much research has been done on the effects of introducing nanoparticles to cryogenic fluids. This study examines the impact of introducing nanoparticles on the total heat-carrying capacity of liquid nitrogen (LN 2 ) under natural convection. In order to prevent sedimentation, it also addresses the problem of nanoparticle sedimentation in natural convection and recommends slight changes to the location of the heat source. For this, a 6 mm superconducting material is submerged in a cooling tub filled with LN 2 . Since cryogenic fluids have limited cooling capacity without boiling therefore nanoparticles like Al 2 O 3 , SiO 2 , and TiO 2 are introduced to the base LN 2 . A high-fidelity mixture computational model is used to accurately predict the enhancement in heat transfer characteristics, accounting for the suspension of nanoparticles. The study also looks at approaches that address the problem of nanoparticle sedimentation and suggests modifications to the cooling domain and superconducting material locations. The findings indicate that adding 0.5% Al 2 O 3 nanoparticles to the base LN 2 significantly increased the heat transfer coefficient by 70%. This suggests that adding Al 2 O 3 nanoparticles could improve heat transfer performance in superconducting systems while reducing sedimentation effects.