Enhanced heat transfer in ethylene glycol-based MXene (Ti3C2) nanofluid with nanoparticle aggregation effects

Nanofluids have fascinated an ample amount of curiosity nowadays. They have a wide variety of applications in advanced engineering systems that include heat exchangers, electronic cooling technologies, and biomedical equipment. The incorporation of nanoparticles into conventional base fluids significantly enhances their thermal conductivity and heat transfer capability. Motivated by these advantages, the present investigation examines the heat transfer behavior of Titanium Carbide ( T i 3 C 2 ) nanofluids flowing over a nonlinearly expanding surface while taking into account both nanoparticle aggregation and non-aggregation effects. Suitable similarity transformations are employed to convert the governing nonlinear partial differential equations into a system of nonlinear ordinary differential equations. As a result, the boundary value is resolved numerically via the bvp5c solver in MATLAB. The influences of the physical constraints, momentum, temperature, and nanoparticle concentration variations are analyzed and illustrated graphically. We examined the effects of physical parameters such as uneven heat source/sink, thermal radiation, Brownian motion and thermophoresis on fluid flows and heat transport characteristics graphically. In addition, important engineering quantities, including the skin friction coefficient, Nusselt numbers, and Sherwood numbers, are computed numerically. The results reveal that the magnetic parameter reduces the velocity profiles while enhances the temperature and concentration distributions. It is also observed that aggregated nanoparticles exhibit higher heat-transfer performance than non-aggregated nanoparticles. Furthermore, increasing Brownian motion and thermophoresis parameters significantly enhances the thermal boundary layer thickness. Results indicate that the frequency of thermal energy transport in the nanofluids is significantly amplified in the presence of Buongiorno’s slip mechanisms when nanoparticle aggregation is considered, compared with the case of non-aggregated nanoparticles.