Experimental study on turbulent convective heat transfer, pressure drop, and thermal performance characterization of ZnO/water nanofluid flow in a circular tube

Abstract

In this experimental study heat transfer and pressure drop behavior of ZnO/water nanofluid flow inside a circular tube with constant wall temperature condition is investigated where the volume fractions of nanoparticles in the base fluid are 1% and 2%. The experiments? Reynolds numbers ranged roughly from 5000 to 30000. The experimental measurements have been carried out in the fully-developed turbulent regime. The results indicated that heat transfer coefficient increases by 11% and 18% with increasing volume fractions of nanoparticles respectively to 1% and 2% vol. The measurements also showed that the pressure drop of nanofluids were respectively 45% and145% higher than that of the base fluid for volume fractions of 1% and 2% of nanoparticles. However experimental results revealed that overall thermal performance of nanofluid is higher than that of pure water by up to 16% for 2% vol. nanofluid. Also experimental results proved that existing correlations can accurately estimate nanofluids convective heat transfer coefficient and friction factor in turbulent regime, provided that thermal conductivity, heat capacity, and viscosity of the nanofluids are used in calculating the Reynolds, Prandtl, and Nusselt numbers.nema