Effect of oxides nanoparticle materials on the pressure loss and heat transfer of nanofluids in circular pipes

Abstract

Laminar flow and heat transfer of different nanofluids pdcles in water, namely Al 2O 3, CuO and TiO 2, flowing through a circular tube under comtant heat flux condtions have been numerically analyzed. The investigation was performed for nanoparticles of size 100 nm. The numerical results obtained are compared with existing well-established correlations. The predction for the Nusselt number for nanofluids agrees well with the Pak-Choi correlation. The thermophysical properties of the nanofluids are estimated by using the equations available in literature. Comparison of convective heat tramfer coefficients for Al 2O 3, CuO and TiO 2, based nanofluids are presented. It is found that pressure loss increases with the particle volume concentration. However, the flow demonstrates enhancement in heat tramfer which becomes better with the increase in the Reynolds number of the flow, but is accompanied with an increase in shear stress. © 2012 Asian Network for Scientific Information.