Comparative study on heat transfer enhancement of nanofluids flow in ribs tube using CFD simulation

Abstract

This study presents, a numerical investigation of two-dimensional turbulent nanofluids flow in different ribs tube configurations on heat transfer, friction, and thermal performance coefficients using ANSYS-FLUENT software version-16. Governing equations of mass, momentum, and energy have been solved by means of a finite volume method (FVM). Four types of nanoparticles namely; Al2O3, CuO, SiO2, and ZnO with volume fraction range (1%-4%) and different size of nanoparticles (dp = 30 nm, 40 nm, 50 nm, and 60 nm) with various Reynolds number (10 000-30 000) in a constant heat flux tube with rectangular, triangular, and trapezoidal ribs were conducted for simulation. The results exhibit that Nusselt number for all cases enhanced with Reynolds number and nanofluid volume fraction increases. Likewise, the results also reveal that SiO2 with volume fractions of 4% and diameters of nanoparticles of 30 nm in triangular ribs offered the highest Nusselt number at Reynolds number of Re = 30 000. In addition, the higher value of thermal performance factor was obtained at Reynolds number of Re = 10 000.