Toward improved heat dissipation of the turbulent regime over backward-facing step for the Alumina-water nanofluids - An experimental approach

Abstract

Experimental study of nanofluid flow and heat transfer to fully developed turbulent forced convection flow in a uniformly heated tubular horizontal backward-facing step has reported in the present study. To study the forced convective heat transfer coefficient in the turbulent regime, an experimental study is performed at a different weight concentration of Al2O3 nanoparticles. The experiment had conducted for water and Alumina-water nanofluid for the concentration range of 0 to 0.1 wt.% and Reynolds number of 4000 to 16000. The average heat transfer coefficient ratio increases significantly as Reynolds number increasing, increased from 9.6% at Re of 4000 to 26.3% at Re of 16,000 at the constant weight concentration of 0.1%. Alumina-water nanofluid exhibited excellent thermal performance in the tube with a backward-facing step in comparison to distilled water. However, the pressure losses increased with the increase of the Reynolds number and/or the weight concentrations, but the enhancement rates were insignificant.