Nanofluid transport in Taylor bubble flows
Abstract
Taylor bubble flows with nanoparticle suspensions are regularly encountered in non-isothermal chemical synthesis and microfluidics. Despite this, a complete mechanistic insight into the coupled thermal and hydrodynamic interactions remains unresolved. Here, a Eulerian-Lagrangian framework has been developed to address this, capturing two-way momentum, energy exchange, and nanoparticle interactions under non-isothermal conditions. We find that Brownian motion acts in two opposing ways, enhancing local particle-fluid energy exchange yet driving a thermophoretic drift away from the heated wall that strengthens as particle diameter is reduced below 100 nm. At particle volume fractions of ϕ∼ 10−2, Taylor flow departs from the Nusselt scaling with dimensionless slug length, L̃s, observed for particle-free flows. This coincides with alterations to bubble topology that co-benefit nanoparticle momentum and energy exchange with the carrier fluid. Examining both Poiseuille and Taylor flow problems, we observe contrasting, often opposing dimensionless heat transport behaviours, questioning the suitability of traditionally accepted mixture approaches. This work reveals that, in the visco-inertial regime (Re > 500), it is the interplay of hydrodynamic, Brownian, and interfacial forces, combined with the Taylor bubble and slug flow topology, which determine positive or negative Nu outcomes. Interestingly, short-range particle forces at the liquid-gas interface work synergistically with the convective motion in the slug to alter local particle concentration and energy exchanges within downstream thin film and near-wall regions. The intensity of this convective flow was found to impact both slug and film transport phenomena, improving the redistribution of nanoparticles when L̃s ≤ 1.6 and with increasing Re.
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BibTeX
@misc{algburi2026nanofluid,
title = {{Nanofluid transport in Taylor bubble flows}},
author = {Fahad Al-Gburi and Faysal Khaleel and Yulong Ding and Jason Stafford},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.15812},
eprint = {2610.15812},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.15812},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Nanofluid transport in Taylor bubble flows
AU - Fahad Al-Gburi
AU - Faysal Khaleel
AU - Yulong Ding
AU - Jason Stafford
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/11
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.15812
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.15812
AB - Taylor bubble flows with nanoparticle suspensions are regularly encountered in non-isothermal chemical synthesis and microfluidics. Despite this, a complete mechanistic insight into the coupled thermal and hydrodynamic interactions remains unresolved. Here, a Eulerian-Lagrangian framework has been developed to address this, capturing two-way momentum, energy exchange, and nanoparticle interactions under non-isothermal conditions. We find that Brownian motion acts in two opposing ways, enhancing local particle-fluid energy exchange yet driving a thermophoretic drift away from the heated wall that strengthens as particle diameter is reduced below 100 nm. At particle volume fractions of ϕ∼ 10^−2, Taylor flow departs from the Nusselt scaling with dimensionless slug length, L̃_s, observed for particle-free flows. This coincides with alterations to bubble topology that co-benefit nanoparticle momentum and energy exchange with the carrier fluid. Examining both Poiseuille and Taylor flow problems, we observe contrasting, often opposing dimensionless heat transport behaviours, questioning the suitability of traditionally accepted mixture approaches. This work reveals that, in the visco-inertial regime (Re > 500), it is the interplay of hydrodynamic, Brownian, and interfacial forces, combined with the Taylor bubble and slug flow topology, which determine positive or negative Nu outcomes. Interestingly, short-range particle forces at the liquid-gas interface work synergistically with the convective motion in the slug to alter local particle concentration and energy exchanges within downstream thin film and near-wall regions. The intensity of this convective flow was found to impact both slug and film transport phenomena, improving the redistribution of nanoparticles when L̃_s ≤ 1.6 and with increasing Re.
ER -