An experimental investigation of thermal-hydraulic performance of silica nanofluid in corrugated channels

Abstract

Corrugated channels are the main sections involved in the thermal system of many applications and they are responsible for a significant enhancement of their efficiency. Herein two types of corrugated channel, namely semicircle-corrugated channel (SCC) and the new form of a trapezoidal-corrugated channel (TCC) in addition to the straight channel (SC) were investigated experimentally using silicon dioxide (SiO2)-water nanofluid as working fluid. The study covers Reynolds numbers from 10,000 to 30,000 and nanofluid with SiO2 volume fractions (ϕ) of 0.0%, 1.0%, and 2.0%. The experimental results indicate that the nanofluid shows better performances in comparison with the base fluid where heat transfer and pressure drop are increased with increasing volume fractions of SiO2. Using the tested channels and SiO2-water nanofluid at 2.0% volume fraction results in improvement in heat transfer ratio around 9.6–10.15% compared to the use of same channels with base fluid. It is also found that the use of corrugated channel (TCC) enhances heat transfer rates up to 63.59%, pressure drop by 1.37 times and thermal performance up to 2.22 times as compared to those of straight channel. Finally, the maximum thermal-hydraulic performance achieved by using TCC form with SiO2-water nanofluid at ϕ = 0.02 and Re = 10,000 is 1.94.