Forced convection in porous media using Al2O3 and TiO2O nanofluids in differing base fluids

Abstract

The following work presents a numerical evaluation of the use of TiO2O and Al2O3 nanofluids operating with ethylene glycol and water as base fluids-as well as an experimental evaluation of Al2O3-water nanofluid. Both numerical and experimental systems were tested and operated under various flow and heat transfer conditions, including four flow rates and three heat fluxes. When compared, the numerical schemes and experimental results showed deviation of under two degrees Celsius. This led the authors to conclude that the numerical scheme accurately reflected the experimental conditions. When all combinations of mixtures were compared numerically, it was found that ethylene glycol provided the highest average Nusselt number, while water offered significantly lower pumping requirements. When comparing nanoparticles, it was found that, in a carrying-fluid of water, TiO2O had superior performance by approximately one percent.