ENHANCED EFFECTIVENESS AND THERMAL PERFORMANCE FACTOR OF NICKEL NANOFLUID FLOW IN A PLATE HEAT EXCHANGER

Abstract

The effectiveness, number of transfer units, and carbondioxide (CO2) emissions of water based nickel nanofluids flow in a plate heat exchanger were discussed in this paper. Additionally, thermo-physical properties, heat transfer, and friction factor were also estimated. The water based nickel nanofluids were prepared and experiments performedat various Reynolds number (300 to 1000) and particle volume concentrations (0.1% to 0.6%). At, 60 oC and ϕ = 0.6% nanofluid, the thermal conductivity and viscosity increase are 33.92% and 67.45% respectively. At the same concentration with a Reynolds number of 707 the effectiveness, number of transfer units, and thermal performance factor were enhanced by 21.33%, 38.6%, and 19.8% while the convective heat transfer coefficient is enhanced by 57.35% over water alone data. At ϕ = 0.6%, the maximum total embodied energy is decreased to 556.13 MJ at, whereas for water, it is 675 MJ with the cost of plate heat exchange getting dropped by 17.39% at ϕ = 0.6% of nanofluid. The environmental CO2 emissions released by the stainless steel material used in the plate heat exchanger is lowered to 21.87 kg of CO2 at ϕ = 0.6% of nanofluid while it is 26.55 kg of CO2 for base fluid.