Nanofluid NiO-H2O on heat exchanger using Taguchi optimization and numerical simulation

Abstract

Heat exchangers that use conventional fluids such as water, ethylene glycol, and oil, which are often used in industry, have poor heat transfer characteristics. Therefore, in this study, we employed nanofluids as a substitute for conventional fluids in a heat exchanger to improve the heat transfer characteristics. This study aims to determine the potential of the working fluid in the heat exchanger system with the addition of NiO nanofluids (sintering and unsintering), which are distributed into the water base fluid. The results were then processed using a simulation on a heat exchanger to determine the heat transfer characteristics, namely the log mean temperature difference (ΔTLMTD) using the Taguchi and CFD methods. This study used a water flow rate (discharge) of 0.45 litre min−1, 0.9 litre min−1 and 1.35 litre min−1, which is modeled in a simulation using variations of 1 tube, 2 tubes, and 3 tubes. Numerical simulations were carried out using the CFD method from Ansys 14.5 and the Taguchi optimization from Minitab 19. The experimental results showed that the best performance for ΔTLMTD was 1.35 litre min−1 using NiO-Sintering nanofluid with 1 tube.