Rheological study of water-based Cu nanofluid between two corrugated curved walls under constant pressure gradient

Abstract

Nanofluids have captured the attention of scientists due to their superior thermophysical properties compared to ordinary liquids. Consequently, nanofluids serve as suitable cooling agents applicable to systems requiring swift response to thermal changes, such as vehicle engines. Therefore, the current article scrutinizes the characteristics of heat transfer on the pressure-driven flow of magnetized nanofluid between two curved corrugated surfaces in the presence of heat generation/absorption. Copper oxide nanoparticles (Cu) have been combined with pure water to form a nanofluid called Cu/H2O. The geometry of the channel is represented mathematically in an orthogonal curvilinear coordinate system. The corrugation grooves are described by sinusoidal functions with phase differences between the corrugated curved walls. The boundary perturbation method is used to find the analytical solution for the velocity field, temperature field, and volumetric flow rate taking the corrugation amplitude as the perturbation parameter. The impact of dissimilar parameters such as the curvature parameter (0.5≤k≤10), wave number (1≤α≤3), magnetic parameter (1≤M≤5), and wave amplitude (0.1≤ε≤0.8) on the flow fields are analyzed through graphs and discussed in detail. The results show that the peak of the velocity increases with the radius of curvature and the width of the channel for a constant pressure gradient. If we increase the magnetic parameter from 1 to 4, the velocity profile at the specified point decreases by 30 %. If we increase the heat source/sink parameter from 2 to 5, the temperature profile at the specified point increases by approximately 17 %. The flow rate is increased by the corrugations for any phase difference between the corrugated curved walls depending on the corrugation wavenumber and the channel radius of curvature.