A Critical Review of Experimental Investigations about Convective Heat Transfer Characteristics of Nanofluids under Turbulent and Laminar Regimes with a Focus on the Experimental Setup

Abstract

In this study, several experimental investigations on the effects of nanofluids on the convective heat transfer coefficient in laminar and turbulent conditions were analyzed. The aim of this work is to provide an overview of the thermal performance achieved with the use of nanofluids in various experimental systems. This review covers both forced and natural convection phenomena, with a focus on the different experimental setups used to carry out the experimental campaigns. When possible, a comparison was performed between different experimental campaigns to provide an analysis of the possible common points and differences. A significant increase in the convective heat transfer coefficient was found by using nanofluids instead of traditional heat transfer fluids, in general, even with big data dispersion from one case to another that depended on boundary conditions and the particular experimental setup. In particular, a general trend shows that once a critic value of the Reynolds number or nanoparticle concentrations is reached, the heat transfer performance of the nanofluid decreases or has no appreciable improvement. As a research field still under development, nanofluids are expected to achieve even higher performance and their use will be crucial in many industrial and civil sectors to increase energy efficiency and, thus, mitigate the environmental impact.