Effect of nanofluids on heat transfer characteristics of an aerodynamic swirl nozzle for isothermal and isoflux conditions

Abstract

ABSTRACT Achieving axisymmetric boundary conditions in turbulent swirl flows and predicting thermo-fluidic behaviours within a nozzle is often a challenge due to the difficulties of measurement diagnostics. Adding nanoparticles to ase fluids exacerbates the complexity because of the regeneration of effective properties of the fluid medium. As such, this study numerically investigates the flow and thermal characteristics for the effect of swirl and nanofluids of incompressible turbulent liquid jets. The results show that the axial and tangential velocity profiles for water-based nanofluids resemble to those for water in no-to-high swirl flows. The surface Nusselt number for strong swirl flow reduces with axial distances at isothermal wall condition, and the Nusselt number is strongly dependent on types of nanofluid for isoflux condition. Water-based nanofluids cause higher heat transfer compared to Dowtherm+Al2O3 and Syltherm800+ Al2O3. The average Nusselt number and the pressure drop are found to be the largest for 10% volume fraction. The increase of thermal-hydraulic performance factor for nanofluids after nozzle convergence is steeper for highly swirling flow than for non-swirling and medium swirling cases. A strong turbulent kinetic energy is observed immediately after the nozzle converging section for all nanofluid cases and Dowtherm+Al2O3 shows relatively uniform distributions across the nozzle.