Numerical Study on the Heat Transfer Characteristics of Cu-Water and TiO2-Water Nanofluid in a Circular Horizontal Tube

Abstract

A numerical simulation of convective heat transfer coefficient (hconv) was studied with Cu-Water and TiO2-Water nanofluids flowing through a circular tube subjected to uniform wall heat flux boundary conditions under laminar and turbulent regimes. Four different concentrations of nanofluids (ɸ = 0.5, 1, 1.5 and 2%) were used for the analysis and the Reynolds number (Re) was varied from laminar (500 to 2000) to turbulent flow regime (5000 to 20,000). The dependence of hconv on Re and ɸ was investigated using a single-phase Newtonian approach. In comparison to base fluid, average hconv enhancements of 10.4% and 7.3% were noted, respectively, for the maximum concentration (ɸ = 2%) and Re = 2000 for Cu-Water and TiO2—water nanofluids in the laminar regime. For the same ɸ under the turbulent regime (Re = 20,000), the enhancements were noted to be 14.6% and 13.2% for both the nanofluids, respectively. The random motion (Brownian motion) and heat diffusion (thermophoresis) by nanosized particles are the two major slip mechanisms that have more influence on the enhancement of hconv. In addition, the Nusselt number (Nu) of the present work was validated for water with the Shah and Dittus Boelter equation and found to have good agreement for both the regimes.