Investigation on Fluid Flow Heat Transfer and Frictional Properties of Al2O3 Nanofluids Used in Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger

Abstract

Nanofluids are generally utilized in providing cooling, lubrication phenomenon, and controlling the thermophysical properties of the working fluid. In this paper, nanoparticles of Al2O3 are added to the base fluid, which flows through the counterflow arrangement in a turbulent flow condition. The fluids employed are ethylbenzene and water, which have differing velocities on both the tube and the shell side of the cylinders. A shell tube-type heat exchanger is used to examine flow characteristics, friction loss, and energy transfer as they pertain to the transmission of thermal energy. The findings of the proposed method showed that the efficiency of a heat exchanger could be significantly improved by the number, direction, and spacing of baffles. With the inclusion of nanoparticles of 1% volume, the flow property, friction property, and heat transfer rate can be considerably improved. As a result, the Nusselt number and Peclet numbers have been increased to 261 and 9.14E+5. For a mass flow rate of 0.5 kg/sec, the overall heat transfer coefficient has also been increased to a maximum value of 13464. The heat transfer rate of the present investigation with nanoparticle addition is 4.63% higher than the Dittus–Boelter correlation. The friction factor is also decreased by about 17.5% and 11.9% compared to the Gnielinski and Blasius correlation. The value of the friction factor for the present investigation was found to be 0.0376. It is hence revealed that a suitable proportion of nanoparticles along with the base fluids can make remarkable changes in heat transfer and flow behavior of the entire system.