Numerical investigation on forced convection enhancement within an oil cooler through the simultaneous use of porous media and nanofluid

Abstract

Traditional strategies for improving heat transmission in industrial systems include nanofluids and porous inserts. In these kinds of systems, increasing the rate of thermal transmission can also be accomplished by utilizing porous materials that have a higher thermal conductance. Al2O3, CuO, and ZnO in engine oil (20w50) nanofluid are studied numerically in three dimensions to see how they affect forced convection in a porous media oil cooler. Within the oil cooler, the porous medium was placed. A two-phase mixture model was used in conjunction with the Darcy–Brinkman–Forchheimer equation indicating the drag forces to simulate nanofluid flow in porous media. In addition, utilizing temperature laboratory data, a more specific thermophysical feature of the fluid was identified and characterized. ANSYS-FLUENT, a commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software, is used to partition the governing equations using the finite volume method. In addition, the thermal boundary parameters of the oil cooler walls were made to be temporally constant and spatially uniform. The effects of varying volume fractions (ranging from 0% to 5%), Darcy number (ranging from 10−2 to 102), overall Nusselt number, pressure reduction, and the performance evaluation criteria (PEC) were analyzed and compared for a variety of distinct nanoparticles. The increased Darcy number (10−2 to 102) had a significant effect on the enhanced heat transfer coefficient, according to the data. In light of the findings, it can be deduced that the high-volume percentage of the nanoparticles will improve thermal transmission and, more significantly, the PEC factor. Furthermore, the given variables were compared, leading to the creation of diagrams for different variables.