Experimental Investigation of Metal Oxide Nanofluids in a Plate Heat Exchanger

Abstract

In this work, the experimental heat transfer of metal oxide nanofluids in a plate heat exchanger was investigated. For this purpose, , , and nanofluids with 0.05, 0.1, and 0.2 wt % of nanoparticle concentration were used to investigate the increment of the heat transfer coefficient for each nanofluid against distilled water. Nanofluid characterization was conducted by dynamic light scattering analysis. Significant enhancements on the heat transfer coefficient in the present nanofluids were observed. The results clearly show that increasing the nanofluid Reynolds number and concentration results in an increase in their heat transfer coefficient. The maximum observed heat transfer enhancement for was obtained at 0.2 wt % and , which is 2.82. Furthermore, the minimum heat transfer enhancement for (20 nm) was achieved at 0.1 wt % and with 1.64. A new correlation was derived for Nusselt number based on the experimental data of the mentioned nanofluids with an average relative error percentage of 3.78%. Moreover, the variations of Nusselt number vs Peclet number, the overall heat transfer coefficient vs Reynolds number, and the nanofluid friction factor vs Reynolds number were considered, and interesting results were reported.