Effect of CuO-water nanofluid on laminar forced convection heat transfer in pipe flow

Abstract

For the purpose of investigating the heat transfer parameters such as Nusselt number, friction factor and pumping power at the presence of various nanoparticle concentration in base fluid, a numerical study of laminar forced convection heat transfer for the fully developed region inside a plain pipe filled with CuO-water is presented. The 2 dimensional single phase mass, momentum and energy equations are solved by using finite volume method with the help of ANSYS FLUENT 16 software. The plain pipe’s diameter is 5mm and length is 750mm. Copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles with different solid volume fraction (1 - 5%) using with water which is considered as the base fluid are analyzed for a range of Reynolds number from 100 to 1400 at constant heat flux 500 W/m2 at the pipe wall. The result reveals that heat transfer coefficient and pumping power are increased significantly with the increasing of the Nusselt number whereas friction factor remains almost same with the presence of nanoparticles concentration at base fluids. Meanwhile, the required pumping power is reduced in terms of constant heat transfer coefficient. The increment of Nusselt number is 0.27% to15% whereas the pumping power reduction is 5% to 40% at the presence of 1% to 5% CuO nanoparticles at water. Therefore, in this study, it is obtained that CuO-water nanofluid provides more heat transfer at lower pumping power compared to pure water.