International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930

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International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer

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

A neural network-based predictive model for the thermal conductivity of T

hybrid nanofluids
Humphrey Aduna, Ifeoluwa Wole-Oshoa, Eric C. Okonkwob, , Olusola Bamisilec,
⁎

Mustafa Dagbasia, Serkan Abbasoglua

a
Department of Energy Systems Engineering, Cyprus International University, North Cyprus, via Mersin-10, Turkey
b
Division of Sustainable Development, College of Science and Engineering, Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar Foundation, Education City, Doha, Qatar
c
School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China, Chengdu, Sichuan 611731, China

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Nanofluids are known to have immense potential for heat transfer applications because of their unique ther­
Nanofluids mophysical properties when compared to the conventional heat transfer fluid. Predicting the thermophysical
Thermal conductivity features like thermal conductivity has posed a challenge to their application. This article addresses some of the
Artificial neural networks challenges posed in their prediction by using data sets from several experimental research on various hybrid
Prediction
nanofluids to train an intelligent neural network. The thermal conductivity of hybrid nanofluids is predicted
Nanoparticle
using seven different input variables namely, volume concentration, temperature, the acentric factor of the base
fluid, nanoparticle bulk density, mixture ratio of particles, the thermal conductivity, and size of nanoparticles.
715 experimental data points from studies using different hybrid nanoparticles are used in developing a multi-
layer perceptron artificial neural network (ANN) and support vector regression (SVR) models. The performance
validation of the models is computed using the mean square error (MSE) and the coefficient of determination
(R2). The performance result showed an R2 value of 0.99997 and 0.99788 in the validation phase of the ANN and
SVR model, respectively. This indicates that the models are capable of accurately predicting the thermal con­
ductivity of hybrid nanofluids over a wide range of hybrid nanoparticle combinations. Finally, a universal
formula using MLP-ANN for predicting the thermal conductivity of hybrid nanofluids is presented.

1. Introduction conventional nanofluids like Al2O3 water-based nanofluid and show a

Nanofluids have the potential to revolutionize the fields of en­
gineering and material science. The dispersions of nanoparticles into
fluids have shown to possess distinctive properties which can improve
the efficiencies of current engineering systems. However, predicting the
thermodynamic properties of nanofluids has been a bit of a quagmire
and has limited their applications.
Since the very end of the 19th century, there have been formulas to
predict the thermal conductivity of spherical dispersions in a fluid.
Maxwell predicted that the thermal conductivity of a fluid that contains
solid conducting particles will depend on the thermal conductivity of
the base fluid, the thermal conductivity of the solid conducting dis­
persion, and the volume concentration of the dispersion in the fluid [1].
While the values predicted by Maxwell are relatively accurate for
similar trend line when compared to experimental results; significant
deviations occur when Maxwell model is compared to experimental
thermal conductivity values for hybrid nanofluids. There have been
other models to predict this thermophysical property. Some models like
Hamilton-Crosse Model [2], Wasp Model [3], and Yu and Choi [4]
models modified the Maxwell model to improve its predictive accuracy.
However, these models still deviate significantly when predicting the
thermal conductivity of conventional and hybrid nanofluid.
These deviations are likely because most of the equations proposed
do not account for all the variables that affect the thermal conductivity
of nanofluids. These variables include base fluid thermal conductivity,
nanoparticle thermal conductivity, the shape of the constituent nano­
particle, particle aggregation over time, volume concentration of the
nanoparticle, interfacial layer within the nanofluid, particle mixture

Abbreviations: ANFIS, Adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system; ANN, Artificial neural networks; BR, Bayesian regularization; LM, Levenberg-Marquard back pro­
pagation; LSSVM, Least square support vector machine; MLP, Multilayer perceptron neural network; RBF, Radial basis function neural networks; RMS, Root mean
square; RP, Resilient propagation; R2, Coefficient of determination; SCG, Scaled conjugate gradient; SSE, Sum of squared errors; SVR, Support vector regression
⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: eokonkwo@hbku.edu.qa (E.C. Okonkwo).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icheatmasstransfer.2020.104930

Available online 13 October 2020

0735-1933/ © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
H. Adun, et al.
ratio for hybrid nanofluids, the temperature of the nanofluids, etc. Each
of these variables has a unique relationship with the thermal con­
ductivity of the nanofluid and with each other. For instance, the higher
the thermal conductivity of the base fluid and constituent nanoparticle
the higher the overall thermal conductivity of the fluid. Also, the
smaller the particle sizes of nanoparticles in the fluid the higher the
thermal conductivity of the fluid, and the higher the rate of particle
aggregation over time. It can also be observed that an increase in vo­
lume concentration and temperature of nanofluids tends to improve the
overall thermal conductivity of the fluid. While many of these re­
lationships can be obtained from experiments on different nanofluids
the exact extents to these relationships have not been fully explored.
In recent years, many researchers have used regression correlation
equations to reflect the relationship between the thermal conductivity
of nanofluids and these variables. Regression correlation equations
have been proposed for several nanofluids; these nanofluids include
Al2O3 water nanofluid, TiO2 water nanofluid, Al2O3 ethylene glycol
(EG) nanofluid, Al2O3 water(40%)–EG(60%) nanofluid [5], Multi­
walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT) water nanofluid, graphene oxide-
Al2O3 water nanofluid [6], SiC-CuO/C EG nanofluid [7], CNT-Fe3O4
water nanofluid [8], Al2O3- MWCNTs EG nanofluid [9], Al2O3-Fe water
nanofluid [10], Al2O3 10w40-engine oil nanofluid [11], Al2O3-TiO2
water nanofluid [12], TiO2-ZnO EG nanofluid [13], MgO-TiO2 water
nanofluid [14] and many others [15,16]. These regression correlation
equations mainly reflect the relationship between the thermal con­
ductivity of nanofluid, volume concentration of nanoparticles, and
temperature. While these regression equations show significantly less
deviation compared to classical models they are significantly limited in
range. The regression equations are accurate within the range in which
the thermal conductivity measurements were taken.
More recently many researchers have turned to artificial in­
telligence (AI) and machine learning models to provide a more accurate
predictive model for the thermal conductivity of nanofluids; these
models include Multilayer perceptron neural network (MLP), Radial
basis function neural networks (RBF) [17], Least square support vector
machine (LSSVM), Adaptive-Network Based Fuzzy Inference Systems
(ANFIS) [17] genetic algorithm-polynomial neural network (GA-ANN)
[18], FCM-based neuro-fuzzy inference system (FCM-ANFIS), Con­
jugate hybrid-PSO ANFIS (CHPSO ANFIS), ANFIS-PSO [19] and ANFIS-
GA [19].
ANFIS, MLP-ANN, RBF-ANN, and LSSVM techniques were used to
predict the thermal conductivity of TiO2 nanofluid. The input para­
meters were taken from several experimental measurements obtained
from different published articles [20]. These input parameters include
temperature, particle volume concentration, and average particle size.
The temperature range considered was between 5 °C to 90 °C, particle
volume concentration range was between 0 and 4% and the range for
TiO2 particle size was between 0 and 220 nm. Of all the considered
techniques the LSSVM showed the highest ability to predict the thermal
conductivity of nanofluids containing TiO2 nanoparticles. Adaptive
neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) and least square support vector
machine (LSSVM) were applied in predicting the thermal conductivity
of conventional nanofluids using temperature, the volume fraction of
the particle, the thermal conductivity of the base fluid, the thermal
conductivity of the nanoparticles and nanoparticle size as the input
variables. In the study 1109 data points were collected from 29 con­
ventional nanofluids [21].
An MLP-ANN was applied in predicting the thermal conductivity of
Cu-TiO2 water/EG hybrid nanofluid. The input parameters considered
were particle volume concentration and temperature. Results show that
the best performing MLP-ANN configuration had an R2 value of 0.999
and a mean square error (MSE) of 0.00002 [22]. An MLP-ANN was also
used to predict the thermal conductivity of SWCNT–Al2O3 EG nano­
fluid, 40 data points were applied to the ANN model and the results
observed that when predicted values are compared to experimentally
obtained values a maximum deviation of 1.94% was observed [23].
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International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930
While there exists a comprehensive ANN model for predicting the
thermal conductivity of nanofluids [24], the thermal conductivity of
metals, and metal oxides based nanofluids [21,25] and thermal con­
ductivity of ethylene glycol-based hybrid nanofluids [26], no study is
yet to propose a comprehensive model for predicting the thermal con­
ductivity of hybrid nanofluids using various base fluids. The study
presents a novel comprehensive artificial neural network-based model
for predicting the thermal conductivity of different hybrid nanofluids.
The network uses seven different input variables namely, volume con­
centration, temperature, the acentric factor of the base fluid, nano­
particle bulk density, mixture ratio of particles, the thermal con­
ductivity, and size of nanoparticles. 715 experimental data points from
various studies using different hybrid nanoparticles are used in devel­
oping a Multi-Layer Perceptron artificial neural network (MLP-ANN)
and Support Vector Regression (SVR) models. The performance vali­
dation of the models is carried out using the mean square error (MSE)
and the coefficient of determination (R2). Finally, a universal formula
using MLP-ANN for predicting the thermal conductivity of hybrid na­
nofluids is presented.
2. Modeling methods
2.1. Support vector regression
Support vector regression (SVR) and support vector classification
(SVC) are both subsets of support vector machines [27]. SVR was first
proposed by Vapnik, and as implied in the name, SVR is used for re­
gression problems and has been applied to many engineering tasks. The
concept of the SVR model is to map the non-linear relationship between
input and output variables. Hence, the goal of the SVR model is to
predict the function from an observed function with minimal error
[27].
In theory, the SVR model fits a regression model y = f(x) to the
ε − SVR model, to make an accurate prediction of target {yi} which has
corresponding input variables of {xi}. With the training data of
{(xi, yi, i = 1, 2, 3, …)}, where x ∈ RN and y ∈ RN are the vector of scalar
input and corresponding scalar output [28]. For mapping, the non-
linear relationship between input variables to the corresponding output
set, a model is constructed in high dimensional feature space, by using a
non-linear mapping function of (hi(x)) as shown in Eq. (1) [29].
n
f (x , w ) = wi hi (x ) + b
i (1)
where w and b are the weight and bias respectively. The coefficients are
determined through the minimization of the risk function. This is given
as [29];
l
1 1
R (C ) = C Lc yi, f (x i , w ) + w 2
l 2 (2)
i=1
where R(C) is the risk function, which is dependent on the empirical
1 l
form (C l i = 1 Lc (yi, f (x i , w )) ) and the smoothness of the
( 1
)
function 2 w 2 . Factor C describes the trade-off between the
smoothness of the model and the empirical form.
Also, in the empirical form, the ε parameter accounts for the errors.
In measuring the “upper” and “lower” values of the ε tube, the slack
variables of ξiand ξi∗ are introduced. The slack variables convert the
SVR model to an optimization problem whose objective function is to
be minimized. The standard form is shown as [28];
n
1
minization w 2 +C (i+ i )
2 i=1
subject to yi (wh (x i ) + b) i + i
where (x i ) + b yi + ; i, 0
i i i (3)
H. Adun, et al.
In overcoming the complexity in computation and high dimensional
featured space, kernel functions are defined in SVR models. Kernel
functions are either symmetric, positive, or semi-definite [30]. Different
kernel functions models have been suggested in literature, although the
most utilized are the linear, polynomial, sigmoid, and radial basis
functions [31]. The functions of the linear kernel, polynomial kernel,
and radial basis function kernel are(x × y),(⌈(x × xi) + 1⌉d), exp
{−y|x − xi|2} respectively [31].
In this study, the cross-validation method is used, and a polynomial
kernel function is adopted to define the non-linear mapping from the
input space to some high dimensional feature space.
2.2. Artificial neural networks
Traditional modeling is limited in finding relationships between
input and output data, as there are scenarios where the relationships
are either complex or non-linear. Artificial neural networks are known
to be an efficient algorithm for mapping input-output data. The neural
network reproduces the functionality of the human brain, in other to
learn the relationship that exists among the corresponding variables
[32,33]. The application of artificial neural networks (ANN) spans di­
verse fields [34–36]. Some of the applications of ANN include pattern
recognition, classification, estimation, and so on [33]. The original idea
of the ANN is to compute and analyze problems in the same pattern as a
working human brain. The architecture of ANN is based on the inter­
connection of units termed “artificial neurons” (similar in pattern to the
axons and neurons in the brain). The perceptrons, which consist of the
inputs, outputs, and hidden layers are the interconnected structures
that provide the basis for the algorithm model [37]. The multilayer-
layer perceptron (MLP) network is one of the most used ANN archi­
tecture [38]. It is designed to function similarly to the learning process
of the human brain. The different learning algorithms of ANN models
include Levenberg-Marquard backpropagation (LM), scaled conjugate
gradient (SCG), Bayesian regularization (BR), and resilient propagation
(RP). Primarily, the ANN architecture consists of input layers, hidden
layers, and output layers. The neurons in one layer do not have a re­
lationship with each other [39]. Signals from one layer are transferred
to the next layer through a non-linear transfer function. A challenge in
utilizing the MLP algorithm is getting an optimal model. This can
however be resolved by using different choices of the MLP algorithm to
arrive at an efficient model [33]. In the MLP algorithm, the weighted
sum of the input is linked to the hidden neurons which is then trans­
formed by the activation function. The input to the output neuron is the
output of the hidden neurons, where further transformation takes place.
Eq. (4) gives the output layer of the MLP neural network [32];
q
yij = f j wji Xi + bij
i=1 (4)
where yij represents the i neurons output of the j layer, the bij is the bias
of the i neuron in the j layer. The wji is the linked weight of each
variable in the i neuron in the j layer, which is chosen at random at the
start of the training process. The Xi is the input vector and the fj is the
non-linear activation function which may be binary sigmoid, bipolar
sigmoid, Gaussian, identity function, and linear function [40].
The schematic representation of the MLP neural network is shown
in Fig. 1. The most utilized transfer function for the output layer is the
purelin, while the tangent sigmoid (tansig) and logarithmic sigmoid
(logsig) hyperbolic functions are the most used for the hidden layers
[41]. In the training process, to minimize errors, there is iterative
random initialization of the weight values and bias values. The back­
propagation method is usually employed to minimize the errors at
every iteration by back-propagating the errors to reduce the values of
the weight and bias errors [41].
One of the most important considerations in machine learning re­
gression modeling is how a model generalizes to unseen data, hence a
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International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930
major issue in ANN modeling is over-fitting [42]. This is the inability of
a model to predict new datasets, though it fits known datasets in the
training process. Several methods have been suggested to avoid this
problem, such as model selection, data augmentation, use of regular­
ization techniques, and early stopping method [43].
In this study, the early stopping technique is used to improve the
generalization of the model and to eliminate the problem of overfitting.
This technique involves splitting the dataset into subsets of training,
testing, and validation. The test set is used in the verification of the
generalization and accuracy of the trained model [44]. This is vital
because at the later stage of the prediction, accuracy begins to worsen
and at this point, the model is stopped and then retrained, as this is
likely to cause overfitting.
The training algorithms used in this study are the scaled conjugate
gradient (SCG), Levenberg-Marquardt (LM), Bayesian regularization
(BR), and Resilient backpropagation (RP). The retrieved dataset is split
into training and validation dataset. The validation dataset was not
used in the training and testing process.
The performance of the model is tested with two different ANN
architecture, these are the ANN models with one layer and with two
hidden layers. In both structures, the number of neurons is gradually
increased to find the optimum.
Table 1 shows the performance parameters used for learning in the
ANN model. In this study, the logistic sigmoid is used as the neuron
activation function as shown in Eq. (5) and the hidden and output layer
is activated by the Purelin function as shown in Eq. (6). The Purelin
function is chosen as the activation function for the output neuron
because it is ideal for continuous-valued targets [45]. The testing da­
taset is used in examining the generalization of the model. Fig. 2 out­
lines the steps taken to obtain the optimum architecture.
(
f (x ) = 1 1 + e cx
) (5)
f (x ) = x (6)
where mu is the momentum update, mu-dec is the mu decrease, mu-
inc is the mu increase and max-fail is the maximum validation fails.
3. Computational methodology
The MATLAB 2018a environment is used in carrying out the com­
putation in this study. To model the relative thermal conductivity of
hybrid nanofluids the following variables were considered, tempera­
ture, volume fraction, mixture ratio, the acentric factor of the base
fluid, nanoparticle's thermal conductivity, nanoparticle's density, and
nanoparticle's size.
For faster training and to avoid getting stuck at a local optimum,
preprocessing of the dataset is important. Before training and testing,
all data are normalized between [0–1] and are de-normalized after­
ward. Eqs. (7) and (8) determine the normalization and denormaliza­
tion functions, respectively.
((X actual Current_min)(Newmax Newmin ))
Xn = + Newmin
(Current max Current min ) (7)
((Xn Newmin )(Current max Current min ))
Xactual = + Current min
(Newmax Newmin )
(8)
where Xn represent the normalized dataset and Xactual is the denorma­
lized dataset.
The performance criteria used in assessing the accuracy of the dif­
ferent model architecture are the mean square error (MSE) and the
coefficient of determination (R2) shown in Eqs. (9) and (10), respec­
tively [46].
H. Adun, et al. International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the MLP neural network.

Table 1 1
N

Optimized parameter selection for the development of the MLP model. MSE = (yi yi ) 2
N I=1 (9)
Parameters Values
1 N
(yi yi )2
Maximum iteration 1000 R2 = 1 N I=1
Minimum gradient 1e-07 1 N
N I=1
(yi yi ) 2 (10)
mu, mu-inc, mu-dec, max-fail 0.001, 10, 0.1, 6
Training dataset 80%
whereyi, yi , yi , and n are experimental data, predicted data, the
Validation dataset 20%
Learning rate 0.1 average value of experimental data, and the number of data points,
Number of hidden layers 1 layer, 2 layers respectively.
Node in hidden layers 1 Hidden layer-10, 15, 20, 25
2 Hidden layer −10/15, 15/15, 20/15, 25/15
Learning algorithm LM, SCG, RP, GDX 3.1. Dataset
Threshold function Logistic sigmoid – neuron activation function
Purelin – activation function for the output The studies that have investigated the relative thermal conductivity
neuron
of hybrid nanofluids were reviewed and 715 experimental data were
Performance metric R2, MSE
obtained from 20 different literatures [6,23,47–64] and used for de­
signing and validating the performance of the predictive model. The

4
H. Adun, et al. International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930

Fig. 2. Algorithm to obtain MLP-ANN optimized model.

5
H. Adun, et al. International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930

Table 2 Table 3
Data set used for model development. Data set used for model development.
Parameters Range No Nanoparticle Base fluid No of data References
points
Temperature (°C) 20–70
Volume concentration 0–3.5 1 Al2O3/MWCNT Thermal Oil 36 [47]
Particle size (nm) 1.5–70 nm 2 Al2O3/Cu Ethylene Glycol 24 [64]
Mixture ratio 0.15–0.85 3 Al2O3-CNT Water 28 [51]
Acentric factor of base fluid 0.343–0.659 4 Al2O3-SWCNT Ethylene Glycol 40 [23]
Thermal conductivity (W/m.k) 0.161299125–1.440480492 5 Al2O3-Graphene Water 30 [6]
Nanoparticle density (kg/m3) 1000–10,500 oxide
Nanoparticle thermal conductivity (W/m.k) 1.36–3007.4 6 Al2O3/SiO2 Water 20 [48]
7 Al2O3-Fe Water 60 [57]
8 TiO2/ZnO Ethylene Glycol 54 [49]
9 TiO2/SiO2 Water/ Ethylene Glycol (60:40) 21 [63]
results of these studies indicate the factors that primarily affect the
10 TiO2/SiO2 Water/ Ethylene Glycol (60:40) 30 [53]
thermal conductivity of the nanofluids. These factors are temperature, 11 TiO2/CuO Ethylene Glycol 32 [52]
particle size, surfactants, volume concentration, nanoparticle's shape, 12 TiO2-MWCNT Ethylene Glycol /water 36 [55]
size, interfacial layers, mixture ratio, inter-particle spacing, and nano­ 13 TiO2-MWCNT Ethylene Glycol /water 49 [54]
particle's thermal conductivity. Also, the thermal conductivity of hybrid 14 ZnO-Ag Water 36 [56]
15 ZnO-MWCNT Ethylene Glycol /water 35 [59]
nanofluid is influenced by the nanoparticle mixture ratio and the type
16 ZnO-SWCNT Ethylene Glycol /water 42 [58]
of base fluid. To make a comprehensive model covering different hybrid 17 MgO/FMWCNT Ethylene Glycol 24 [62]
nanofluids, the most significant factors that influence thermal con­ 18 Fe3O4/FMWCNT Ethylene Glycol 48 [61]
ductivity must be recognized. In the present study, the temperature, the 19 SiO2/MWCNT Ethylene Glycol 35 [60]
20 SiO2/MWCNT Ethylene Glycol 35 [50]
volume concentration, the particle size, the mixture ratio, the thermal
conductivity of nanoparticle, the nanoparticle density and the acentric
factor of base fluid were selected as input parameters. To improve the
accuracy of the computing model the acentric factor of the base fluid
was used to identify the different base fluids within the study. For the individually. Also, Table 3 shows the number of data points selected
critical properties of mixtures, the acentric factor is determined using from each study. The selected data points are within the temperature
Kay's equation as used in the study conducted by Khalif and Vaferi [24]. and volume concentration ranges considered in this study. The re­
Table 2 shows the general specification of the data set used in the ANN trieved dataset is split into two, 80% for training, and 20% for vali­
and support vector model development. dation. The 20% validation dataset, representing 143 data points ran­
Fig. 3 shows the retrieved hybrid nanofluid from reviewed studies domly selected from the literature [59,61,63,64] [55], was not used in
used to predict the thermal conductivity of the different nanofluids the training process but was used as an external validator.

Fig. 3. Hybrid nanofluid used in this study.

6
H. Adun, et al.
4. Results and discussions
In this section, the results from SVR, ANN-BR, ANN-LM, ANN-SCG,
and ANN-RP were discussed and analyzed. Also, this section compares
the results from all the applied prediction techniques and compares
them with each other to determine the techniques with the best per­
formance. Ultimately the relative error in prediction is determined for
each technique.
4.1. SVR configurations
As earlier stated, the SVR model is constructed using the input
combinations of temperature, volume concentration, nanoparticle size,
mixture ratio, the acentric factor of the base fluid, nanoparticle density,
and nanoparticle thermal conductivity. High prediction and general­
izability are only ensured by searching for the optimal parameters of
the SVR model [25]. The kernel function used in this study is the
polynomial function as it gave the best performance. The type of
polynomial function used in this study is the cubic polynomial. The
kernel contains a bias term b, accommodated within the kernel func­
tion. The accuracy of the SVR model is defined here in terms of the
generalization ability. In practice, this is inferred as cross-validation
(CV) over the training set of known data. The most common CV is the k-
fold CV which is usually set between 5 and 10 [65]. The k-fold cross
validation used in this study is set to 5. The error between the predicted
and real values in a high-dimensional space is the epsilon (ε). The box
constraint is described as a parameter penalizing vectors laying outside
the epsilon-margin. Varying the box constraint values, increases, or
decreases the support vectors. An optimum box constraint value allows
for more regularization, as more points lie within the margin and this
reduces the risk of overfitting. The points within the margin are support
vectors. The optimum parameters for the SVR models are shown in
Table 4.
4.1.1. Evaluation of the proposed SVR model
The accuracy of the SVR model was assessed using the MSE and the
coefficient of determination (R2) values between the predicted and the
experimental relative thermal conductivity results. From Eqs. (9) and
(10), the values for both the MSE and R2 are obtained for assessing the
accuracy of the model in predicting the relative thermal conductivity of
the hybrid nanofluid, the statistical and graphical result is shown in
Table 5 and Figs. 4 and 5. Table 5 shows the statistical results retrieved
for the training and validation phase of the model. The result shows a
high correlation coefficient and low MSE values. This is an indication of
the high computational performance of the developed model for re­
lative thermal conductivity prediction.
From Table 5, the R2 value of 0.99883 in the training dataset shows
a high correlation coefficient between the experimental and predicted
values during the training process. However, the R2 value of the vali­
dation data set was calculated to be 0.99783. While this is 0.001 lower
than the value obtained from the training set, it still reflects an ac­
ceptable performance of the prediction model. The validation process
confirms the accuracy of the prediction model. Fig. 4b gives a graphical
illustration of the validation model.
Fig. 5a and Fig. 5b show the relative error of the training and
Table 4
Optimum parameters for SVR modeling.
Model parameters Optimal values
Function Polynomial
Kernel scale 1.3372
Bias 0.8038
K folds 5
Epsilon (ε) 0.0741
Box constraint 0.741
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International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930
Table 5
Optimum statistical results for SVR modeling.
Parameters Training Validation dataset
−4
MSE 1.3142e 1.2769e−4
R2 0.99883 0.997883
validation data, respectively. The result shows that the error was neatly
spread around the zero line, and this points to the excellence of SVR as a
predictive model for the thermal conductivity of nanofluids.
4.2. ANN configuration
Studies have shown that a small number of neurons in the hidden
layers can make the performance of the ANN model unsatisfactory,
likewise too large number of neurons can also cause overfitting in the
model [32]. In finding an optimum configuration, there is no general
rule, as the model configuration would depend on the complexity of the
system. The different MLP architecture utilized in this study was ex­
amined using trials and errors to obtain the best configuration [66].
4.2.1. Evaluation of proposed ANN configuration
Table 6 shows the statistical results retrieved for the training and
validation phase of the model. An ANN with one (1) hidden layer and
an ANN with two (2) hidden layers were selected. A range of neurons
was modeled to determine the optimum performing configuration.
The optimization of the training algorithm is first determined. For
optimal training process results, the training process for each archi­
tecture is carried out three times, and the average value is computed.
Also, based on literature [32], the trial and error method is used in the
training algorithm, as regards the number of neurons in the hidden
layers, in determining the best network architecture. In this study, the
number of hidden layers and the number of neurons in the hidden
layers are varied from one to two hidden layers. As observed from
Table 6 the optimum MLP configuration was achieved with two hidden
layers having 10 neurons in the first hidden layer and 15 neurons in the
second hidden layer. The Bayesian regularization (BR) method was
used in the training process of the relative thermal conductivity pre­
diction model. The choice of BR was made by investigating previous
literature [67–71] which shows that the Bayesian method can solve the
challenge posed by overfitting effectively.
While BR has some advantages, according to Okut et al. [67], the
performance of BR algorithm may not be significantly better than the
other training algorithms, hence this study also utilized the RP, LM, and
SCG training algorithms on the determined optimum MLP configuration
to validate the best prediction accuracy of the model. The result in
Table 7 shows the statistical performance of different training techni­
ques in predicting the relative thermal conductivity of hybrid nano­
fluids. Based on the recorded results, it is obtained that the BR training
algorithm is the best predictive training model; having both the highest
R2 value and least MSE values compared to RP, SCG, and LM. Of the
considered training algorithms, the SCG performed the worst. This can
be attributed to the model challenges with initial minimization.
Fig. 6a shows the agreement between the predicted and experi­
mental data used in the training process. The R2 value of 0.99989 in the
training process shows a high correlation coefficient. Also, as can be
observed from Fig. 6a, all the data points are aligned along the diagonal
line of the graph, which shows a high-performance prediction model.
Fig. 6b shows the R2 value of the validation dataset of 0.99993 also
confirming a high prediction accuracy. Furthermore, Fig. 7 shows the
residual analysis of the training and validation model. The concentra­
tion of the errors around the zero line also proves that the high per­
formance of the models.
The universal formula for the relative thermal conductivity of hy­
brid nanofluid using the optimum MLP model is derived in this study.
H. Adun, et al. International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930

Fig. 4. Cross plots of experimental and predicted values of relative thermal conductivity for (a) training (b) validation for the SVR model.

Eq. (11) presents this universal ANN formula. 4.3. Comparative evaluation of the intelligent models to classical predictive
models
15
wi31 (1 1 + exp 10

i=1
w 2 1 1 + exp
j = 1 ji (( 11 1
))
1
k = 1 wkj uk + j + i2 + 13
From the previous sections, MLP and SVR models were developed
for the prediction of the relative thermal conductivity of hybrid nano­
(11)
fluids. Table 8 shows that the MLP has a higher prediction accuracy as
k k
where the bias weights are given as βj and wji is the link weights for compared to the SVR model in this study. The Maxwell model for hy­
the neuron j in layer k. uk is the input variable matrix for the seven brid nanocomposite [72] given in Eqs. (12) and (13) is used in com­
model input parameters. An excel file is attached that contains the puting the relative thermal conductivity of the validation dataset of the
weights and bias of the proposed ANN model. The weight and bias hybrid nanofluid and compared with the machine learning models.
values of the optimum MLP model can be found in the supplementary
excel file.

8
H. Adun, et al. International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930

Fig. 5. Relative error distribution over the experimental relative thermal conductivity (a) for training data (b) Validation data.

Table 6
Statistical results of ANN configurations for training and validation.
Hidden layers No of neurons MSE (training) MSE (validation) SSE (validation) R2 (training) R2 (validation)

1 10 5.36879e–5 1.0609e−4 0.0148 0.99914 0.99825

1 15 1.56079e−5 3.249 e−5 0.0047 0.99976 0.99947
1 20 3.31880e−5 4.761 e−5 0.0067 0.99956 0.99928
1 25 1.24703e−5 2.209 e−5 0.0031 0.99986 0.99966
2 5–15 1.1720e−04 1.6641 e−4 0.0235 0.99858 0.99725
2 10–15 8.6675e−06 4.000 e−5 5.585e−4 0.99989 0.99993
2 15–15 9.0519e−06 6.25 e−6 8.5456e−4 0.99987 0.99992
2 20–15 2.1438e−04 1.156 e−5 0.0016 0.99738 0.99983
2 25–15 7.1306e−06 7.29 e−5 9.9542e−4 0.99955 0.99945

The boldened text in Table 6 shows the optimum MLP configuration used in the study from all the possible configurations tested.

9
H. Adun, et al. International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930

Table 7
Evaluation of optimum MLP architecture using different training algorithms. Khnf
=
( ( p1 kp1 + p2 kp2 )
tot
+ 2kbf + 2( p1 kp1 + p2 kp2 ) 2 tot kbf )
Kbf ( p1 kp1 + p2 kp2 )
Training MSE (training) MSE R2 (training) R2 (validation) + 2kbf ( p1 k p1 + p2 k p2 ) + tot kbf (12)
tot
algorithms (validation)
tot = p1 + p2 (13)
BR 8.6675e−06 1.0609e−4 0.99989 0.99993
RP 0.0014 1.0240e−3 0.98247 0.98265
where kbf, kp1, kp2, ∅p1, ∅p2, ∅tot is the thermal conductivity of the
SCG 0.0078 5.806e−3 0.90306 0.89226
LM 7.1930e−04 4.4521e−4 0.99086 0.99246 base fluid, the thermal conductivity of particle 1, the thermal con­
ductivity of particle 2, the volume fraction of particle 1, volume fraction
The boldened text in Table 7 indicates the training algorithm with the best of particle 2, and total volume fraction respectively.
result. Table 9 shows model accuracy using the experimental results

Fig. 6. Experimental and predicted values of relative thermal conductivity for the (a) training (b) validation model in MLP.

10
H. Adun, et al. International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930

Fig. 7. Experimental and predicted values of relative thermal conductivity for the (a) training (b) validation model in MLP.

Table 8 volume fraction, mixture ratio, and size of the nanoparticles.

Performance of proposed machine learning algorithms. The dataset separated for validation was used in analyzing the effect
Machine learning algorithms ANN SVR
of some of the considered parameters on the relative thermal con­
ductivity of the fluids. TiO2-SiO2 EG/water (60:40) nanofluid as used in
MSE 1.0609e−4 1.2769e−4 Hamid et al. [53] experiment was mainly used to validate and compare
R2 0.99993 0.99783 with the proposed intelligent models.
Fig. 8 shows the effect of volume fraction on the effective thermal
The boldened text in Table 8 shows that the statistical results of the ANN model
performed better than the SVR. conductivity of the hybrid nanofluid. The result shows that by only
considering the effect of volume concentration the intelligent predictive
obtained from Al2O3/Cu water hybrid nanofluid at a 50%–50% mixture models to a degree of accuracy match the experimental data. The MLP
ratio. From Table 9, it can be observed that the Maxwell model has a with BR learning had the best agreement with the experimental data.
higher error and deviation from the actual values, as volume fraction However, SVR also has a near-perfect prediction as well, and only
increases. This is in agreement with comparative studies done between slightly overestimates thermal conductivity values as the volume con­
experimental values of hybrid nanofluid relative thermal conductivity centration of the nanofluid increases. The Maxwell model, on the other
compared with results obtained by Maxwell's equation [10,73]. Also, hand, shows a significant deviation from the experimental data. This
the results presented validate the ANN–BR as the most accurate thermal proves the superiority of machine learning algorithms over Maxwell's
conductivity model presented. model.
Table 10 shows how the mixture ratio of the nanoparticles within
the hybrid nanofluid influences the effective thermal conductivity of
4.4. Relationship between different parameters with the relative thermal the nanofluid. The measured values of the thermal conductivity of
conductivity of hybrid nanofluids hybrid nanofluids are compared to the forecasted values for thermal
conductivity as the mixture ratio of Al2O3 in the Al2O3-ZnO hybrid
In this section, the effect of the different parameters on the thermal nanofluid is varied. Both the MLP model and the SVR model predict the
conductivity of nanofluids is analyzed. These parameters include curve-like relationship between the mixture ratio and thermal

11
H. Adun, et al. International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930

Table 9
Model validations of Al2O3/Cu hybrid nanofluid (50%–50% mixture ratio).
Volume fraction Experimental values SVR MLP Maxwell model SVR-deviation MLP deviation Maxwell model deviation

25 °C
0.125 1.0118 1.0230 1.0109 1.0037 1.1035 −0.0861 −0.7972
0.25 1.0417 1.0402 1.0415 1.0075 −0.1368 −0.0148 −3.2798
0.5 1.0767 1.0720 1.0749 1.0150 −0.4324 −0.1692 −5.7280
1 1.1344 1.1279 1.1295 1.0030 −0.5746 −0.4339 −11.5877
1.5 1.1895 1.1794 1.1881 1.0045 −0.8449 −0.1114 −15.5506
2 1.2438 1.2336 1.2413 1.0060 −0.8216 −0.2038 −19.1185

35 °C
0.125 1.0191 1.0262 1.0215 1.0037 0.6958 0.2343 −1.5064
0.25 1.0490 1.0447 1.0519 1.0075 −0.4160 0.2738 −3.9601
0.5 1.0843 1.0789 1.0859 1.0150 −0.4919 0.1491 −6.3858
1 1.1424 1.1397 1.1411 1.0030 −0.2380 −0.1109 −12.2022
1.5 1.1978 1.1959 1.1994 1.0045 −0.1527 0.1332 −16.1368
2 1.2525 1.2548 1.2523 1.0060 0.1890 −0.0168 −19.6796

45 °C
0.125 1.0290 1.0312 1.0301 1.0037 0.2185 0.1102 −2.4515
0.25 1.0590 1.0506 1.0608 1.0075 −0.7942 0.1647 −4.8670
0.5 1.0945 1.0867 1.0959 1.0150 −0.7125 0.1304 −7.2628
1 1.1531 1.1511 1.1525 1.0030 −0.1789 −0.0565 −13.0214
1.5 1.2090 1.2109 1.2108 1.0045 0.1563 0.1427 −16.9183
2 1.2642 1.2733 1.2636 1.0060 0.7192 −0.0531 −20.4277

50 °C
0.125 1.0349 1.0348 1.0337 1.0037 −0.0071 −0.1224 −3.0124
0.25 1.0651 1.0546 1.0646 1.0075 −0.9823 −0.0439 −5.4053
0.5 1.1007 1.0914 1.1006 1.0150 −0.8463 −0.0108 −7.7835
1 1.1596 1.1571 1.1581 1.0030 −0.2183 −0.1334 −13.5079
1.5 1.2158 1.2183 1.2166 1.0045 0.2008 0.0592 −17.3824
2 1.2713 1.2820 1.2694 1.0060 0.8366 −0.1522 −20.8718

conductivity. However, the Maxwell model inaccurately shows a linear Table 10

relationship between the mixture ratio and thermal conductivity. The Effect of mixture ratio on relative thermal conductivity.
MLP is again more accurate than the SVR models in predicting this Mixture ratio Experimental data Machine learning Maxwell model
relationship. algorithms
The result obtained in this study corroborates with those in litera­
ture. The study by Kavitha and Kumar [74] compares the performance R1 R2 MLP SVR

of the SVR and MLP models in the prediction of the thermal properties 0.33 0.67 0.782 0.787621 0.785223 1.02935793
of nanofluids. Their study showed that the MLP model performed better 0.5 0.5 0.775 0.777154 0.77265 1.029408144
than the SVR model, which had a cubic polynomial kernel as the best 0.67 0.33 0.805 0.806927 0.781868 1.029453291
kernel function. However, the R2 value obtained in this study showed a

Fig. 8. Effect of volume concentration on relative thermal conductivity.

12
H. Adun, et al.
better prediction performance when compared with that obtained in
their study. A similar study by Jamei et al. [26] used three models;
genetic algorithm, model tree, and multiple linear regression for pre­
diction of thermal conductivity of hybrid nanofluid. Their best per­
forming model was the genetic algorithm with an R2 value of 0.9028
which is less accurate when compared to the results obtained from this
study. A study by Wang et al. [66] also compared the prediction per­
formance of hybrid nanofluids using different machine learning algo­
rithms. Their result showed that the best performance was obtained
with the mind evolutionary algorithm back propagation neural network
(MEA-BPNN), which gave an R2 value of 0.9997. This also shows that
the prediction in this study has better accuracy.
5. Conclusion
To aid in enhancing the thermal application of nanofluids in en­
gineering systems, this study seeks to address the challenges faced with
predicting the thermal conductivity of hybrid nanofluids. The study
presents an intelligent based model for predicting the thermal con­
ductivity of various hybrid nanofluids. The network uses seven different
input variables namely, volume concentration, temperature, the acen­
tric factor of the base fluid, nanoparticle density, mixture ratio of
particles, the thermal conductivity, and size of nanoparticles. 715 data
points from several published articles are used to validate and train the
neural network model. Upon the statistical validation of the models
using their R2 and MSE values, the following conclusions can be
reached:
• When BR, RP, LM, and SCG training algorithms are used to train the
MLP, the BR training produced the most accurate hybrid thermal
conductivity prediction results when validated.
•
Using the SVR model to predict the thermal conductivity of nano­
fluids shows fairly accurate results. However, the SVR model does
not perform as well as the MLP.
•
The Maxwell model is not an accurate predictor of the thermal
conductivity for hybrid nanofluid. It fails to predict the trend lines
especially when the mixture ratio of the particles is considered.
•
Both MLP and SVR can accurately predict the effects of volume
concentration, mixture ratio, and temperature on the thermal con­
ductivity of hybrid nanofluids.
This research ultimately shows that intelligent systems can help
scientists and engineers predictive the thermal conductivity of hybrid
nanofluids to a remarkably high degree of accuracy across different
base fluid types, nanoparticle types, temperatures, volume concentra­
tions, and mixture ratios within hybrid.
Nomenclature
b bias
i neurons
j layers
k Thermal conductivity (W/m.K)
R Mixture ratio of Al2O3
w weights
y output
Greek symbols
β Ratio of layer thickness to particle radius
γ Ratio of layer thermal conductivity to particle thermal con­
ductivity
μ dynamic viscosity (Pa s)
ρ density (kg/m3)
φ volumetric fraction of nanoparticles (%)
13
International Communications in Heat and Mass Transfer 119 (2020) 104930
Acknowledgements
Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.
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