Experimental investigation on the boiling heat transfer of nanofluids on a flat plate in the presence of a magnetic field

Abstract

In this paper, the pool boiling heat transfer of Fe3O4 -deionized (DI) water as a magnetic nanofluid has been experimentally analyzed in the atmospheric pressure. The applied nanofluid within this research has been synthesized through a single step to retain a high stability. The repeatability and precision of the testing device with deionized water show a good agreement with the equations introduced in previous studies. Parametric studies on magnetic field, surface roughness, and magnetic nanofluid concentration are performed to reveal various aspects of the boiling heat transfer. In order to study the surface roughness, two surfaces with high average roughness (480nm) and low average roughness (7.3nm) were used. The obtained results indicate that the boiling heat transfer on the rough surface increases when raising the nanofluid concentration up to 0.1% volume concentration. In addition, it is observed that there is an optimum 0.1% volume concentration for the nanofluid which makes the boiling heat transfer coefficient increase up to 43%. Moreover, the heat transfer of a nanofluid with volume concentration of 0.1% is greater for the rough surface compared with the smooth one. The results of the experiments indicate that adding nanoparticles would not necessarily increase the boiling heat transfer coefficient. In fact, the surface roughness and the magnetic field gradient on the boiling surface were the main factors that could affect the boiling heat transfer coefficient significantly. The simultaneous analysis of magnetic field, surface roughness, and nanofluid concentration reveals that the boiling heat transfer coefficient of the magnetic nanofluid with 0.1% volume concentration in the presence of a magnetic field on the rough surface is higher than on the smooth surface. Our findings show that this increase is associated to the increase of nucleation sites concentration and bubble formation sites for the rough surface.