Heat Transfer Enhancement in MCHS using Al2O3 / Water Nanofluid

Abstract

In the present paper, Numerical simulation is performed to investigate the laminar force convection of Al2O3/water Nanofluid in a flow channel with different constant heat flux 50, 90, 150 W/cm2 respectively and two values of mass flow rate of fluid. The heat sources are placed on the bottom wall of channel which produces much thermal energy that must be discarded from the system. The remaining surfaces of channel are kept adiabatic to exchange energy between Nanofluid and heat sources. The effects of Reynolds number Re < 1000), the volume fraction of nanoparticles of nanofluid have the percentages of 0, 1, 3 and 5%. on the average heat transfer coefficient (h), pressure drop (∇P), surface Nusselt number and wall temperature ( Tw ) are evaluated. The use of Nanofluid can produce an asymmetric velocity along the height of the channel. The results show that the wall temperature decreases remarkably as Re and volume of fraction increase. It is also observed that there is an enhancement of average heat transfer coefficient and it’s observed also that the use of Nanofluid improves MCHS performance by reducing fin (conductive) thermal resistance.

Keywords

• Nanofluid
• Laminar flow
• Pressure drop
• Heat transfer enhancement
• Forced Convection