Effect of rotating cylinder on nanofluid heat transfer in a bifurcating grooved channel equipped with porous layers

Abstract

The aim of this work is to examine numerically the effect of using a rotating cylinder and porous layers on the forced convection in a bifurcating grooved channel (BGC) filled with two types of nanofluids (MgO-water, SiO2-water). The semi-implicit finite volumes method was used to solve the governing equations. The effects of Reynolds number, nanoparticles volume fraction, and cylinder rotation speed on hydro-thermal performances have been investigated. According to the obtained results, the rotation direction plays a significant role in the formation of vortices at the branching channel, such that when the cylinder rotates clockwise, the vortex occurs in the vertical channel, and it decreases with increasing Reynolds number. Besides, using BGC with a porous medium enhances the heat transfer rate by 52% and 49% at the vertical and horizontal walls of the porous layer, respectively. On the other hand, the heat transfer rate is improved by 2.6% when using MgO nanoparticles compared to SiO2. Therefore, the use of bifurcating grooved channels can improve the thermal performance of various applications in thermal engineering, from fuel cells to electronic cooling.