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ISSN Online: 2379-1748

ISBN Flash Drive: 978-1-56700-517-2

5-6th Thermal and Fluids Engineering Conference (TFEC)
May, 26–28, 2021 , Virtual

CONVECTIVE HEAT TRANSFER CHARACTERISTICS OF Al2O3 NANOFLUID IN MINITUBE

Get access (open in a dialog) pages 1181-1190
DOI: 10.1615/TFEC2021.nma.036669

Abstract

Convection heat transfer is essential in a wide range of industries, from power generation, automotive, chemical processing, renewable energy technologies to several other applications that required thermal management like cooling processes or systems. Usually, these types of systems depend on fluids thermophysical properties to enhance heat transfer. However, conventional fluids used in such thermal systems have poor thermo-physical properties limiting the effectiveness of such systems. Adding nanoparticles to these conventional fluids led to significantly enhance their thermophysical properties making them as an advanced class of heat transfer fluids. In this study, a numerical investigation is carried out on the laminar flow convective heat transfer of Al2O3 nanofluids in a horizontal minitube of 3.5 mm diameter under constant heat flux boundary condition (15 kW/m2) and at inlet temperature of 25°C. In order to obtain input parameters for numerical simulation, nanofluids of several concentrations of Al2O3 nanoparticles in EG/water mixture are prepared and thermal property of nanofluids as well as base fluid are characterized. A numerical approach based on CFD tools is developed and validated using experimental data of convective heat transfer of base fluid (EG/water). The evaluation of the performance of nanofluids is conducted by determining heat transfer coefficients, pressure drop and friction factor in comparison with the base fluid. The results show noticeable enhancement in the convective heat transfer with the corresponding pressures drop rises of the nanofluids.