Effect of magnetic field on fluid flow characteristics and augmentation of heat transfer in a heat exchanger

Abstract

The study of fluid flow, subjected to an external magnetic field, has become an attractive and demanding research area because of its huge applications. In this work, water base magnetic nanofluid dynamics, taking into account the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) phenomenon, have been explicitly investigated. In this study, governing equations are coupled with magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) and are solved with the help of a finite volume procedure based on a control volume approach. The numerical outcomes of the simulation are depicted and discussed sequentially in terms of different contour and flow parameters. The impact of magnetic number arising from magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) ranging from 302 to 377 for a fixed Reynolds number of 100 on the flow characteristics has been presented in detail. The flow parameters like wall shear and pressure of wall are increased with increasing the magnetic number, and the number of recirculating bubbles increases with decreasing the magnetic number. Thus, to generate the maximum number of recirculating bubbles, a lower magnetic number is being recommended. The formation of the recirculating zone increases the retention time of fluid, which results in the enhancement of heat transfer for a specific surface of a heat exchanger.