An Investigation on the Forced Convection of Al₂O₃-water Nanofluid Laminar Flow in a Microchannel Under Interval Uncertainties

Abstract

Nanofluids are regarded as an effective cooling medium with tremendous potential in heat transfer enhancement. In reality, nanofluids in microchannels are at the mercy of uncertainties unavoidably due to manufacturing error, dispersion of physical properties, and inconstant operating conditions. To obtain a deeper understanding of forced convection of nanofluids in microchannels, uncertainties are suggested to be considered. This paper studies numerically the uncertain forced convection of Al2O3-water nanofluid laminar flow in a grooved microchannel. Uncertainties in material properties and geometrical parameter are considered. The uncertainties are represented by interval variables. By employing Chebyshev polynomial approximation, interval method (IM) is presented to estimate the uncertain thermal performance and flow behavior of the forced convection problem. The validation of the accuracy and effectiveness of IM are demonstrated by a comparison with the scanning method (SM). The variation of temperature, velocity, and Nusselt number are obtained under different interval uncertainties. The results show that the uncertainties have remarkable influences on the simulated thermal performance and flow behavior.

Keywords

• Al₂O₃-water nanofluid
• microchannel
• convection heart transfer
• uncertainty
• interval analysis
• Chebyshev polynomial approximation