Comparative Study of Conjugate Heat Transfer Characteristics in Chevron Corrugated Plate Heat Exchanger Using CuO Nanocoolant

Abstract

In every thermal system in industry equipped with a heat exchanger, enhancement in heat transfer with the aid of good thermal conductive nanocoolants without the escalation in pressure drop is promising research area. In line with this motive, the present work carried out a numerical analysis on conjugate heat transfer characteristics of plate heat exchanger (PHE) in the application of a food processing plant in which CuO nanofluid is used as a coolant. A 3D geometry of PHE is developed with configurations of plate considered as L-theta and H-theta for the investigation using commercially available ANSYS-FLUENT 15.0. Further, simulations studies on both H-theta (β = 30°) and L-theta (β = 55°) are carried out using CuO–water nanofluid for different volumetric concentrations (0, 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5 and 3%). The wide range of Reynolds numbers (600 ≤ Re ≤ 2500) is considered within turbulent regime for the case of PHE where k–ω SST with transitional flow enabled model is used for better results. The results of both L- and H-theta plates are presented in terms of isotherms, contours of velocity at different concentrations of CuO nanofluid. The effect of pertinent parameters like friction factor, Peclet number and average Nusselt and Reynolds numbers on coupled heat transfer is studied. A drastic drop in pressure is observed during heat transfer studies at a concentration greater than 1.5 vol.% for the CuO nanofluid. The enhancement of heat transfer and optimum pressure drop that contributes low pumping power consumption is observed at 1.5 vol.% water-based CuO nanofluid.