AN EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION FOR THE USE OF MULTI-WALL CARBON NANOTUBES BASED ON WATER NANOFLUID IN A PLATE HEAT EXCHANGER

Abstract

An experimental study has been conducted to investigate the performance of an Armfield plate heat exchanger (HT32) with an Armfield heat exchange service unit (HT30X) using multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) based on distilled water with different volume concentrations. There are five volume concentrations used in this study (0.22%, 0.33%, 1.66%, 1.1%, 1.53%). The Reynolds number of the hot fluid (distilled water &nanofluids) range 100 ˂ Re ˂ 700. The overall heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop, friction factor, the mean Nusselt number, and the effectiveness were calculated by measuring the variables. The experimental results obtained showed that Nanofluids have a significant effect on the heat transfer process depending on the concentration of nanoparticles in the base fluid. Overall heat coefficient and Nusselt number increase with the increase of volume concentration. The enhancement in the value of the overall heat coefficient depends on the volume concentration of nanoparticles compared with pure distilled water. The pressure drop and the friction factor increase with the increase of the volume concentrations of nanoparticles. The enhancement in the value of Nusselt number reaches 32% in case of use nano-fluid with a volume concentration of 1.53% in comparing of distilled water. The effectiveness increases with the increase of the volume concentrations and Reynolds number. An empirical correlation to calculate the Nusselt number is obtained. By the comparison between the results in the current study and the literature, one can find an acceptable agreement.