Numerical simulation for heat transfer analysis in laminar flow of CuO-water nanofluid in tubes

Abstract

This paper presents a two-dimensional numerical analysis to study the laminar heat transfer and flow characteristics of CuO-water nanofluids through a tube at constant heat flux boundary condition at tube wall. Based on the single-phase approach, the effects of different parameters such as nanoparticle volume concentration (1% - 5%), and Reynolds number (500- 2100) for various axial locations of tube with CuO-water nanofluids as working media were discussed in detail. The finite volume method and SIMPLE algorithm are utilized to solve the governing equations numerically. The numerical results shows that with increasing Reynolds number, local Nusselt number enhanced. The variations of the local Nusselt number relative to volume concentrations are not uniform. According to the results, an equation was obtained for Nusselt number predicted data using the dimensionless numbers. The relation between local Nusselt number and Re number also compared for other previous work. There are agreement in results and found the maximum difference between results reach to be 6.3% approximately which validate the current computational model.