Intensification of convective heat transfer in water/ethylene glycol based nanofluids containing TiO2 nanoparticles

Abstract

This paper presents a study of heat transfer performance of water, ethylene glycol (EG) and their mixtures of varying compositions and comparison thereof. The present work demonstrates the enhancement in convective heat transfer in nanofluids. The nanofluids were prepared by adding TiO2 nanoparticles (having a particle size below 100nm) in a base fluid. A binary mixture of EG (40%) and water (60%) was used as a base fluid. Nanofluids with varied volume fraction between 0 and 0.5 (volume fraction of TiO2 nanoparticles) were considered in the present study. The experimental setup used was consisting of a test section that includes 750mm long copper pipe with 8mm inner diameter and a heater. The test section was covered with an insulation layer to minimize the heat losses. Temperature measurement was done with thermocouples. The experiments were conducted to study the effects of solid volume fraction, nanofluid flow rate and the inlet temperature on the heat transfer performance of the nanofluids. The results show an enhancement in heat transfer coefficient with increased volume fraction of TiO2 nanoparticles. The maximum enhancement of 105% in heat transfer coefficient was observed for the nanofluid with solid volume fraction of 0.5.