Shape effect of Cu, Al2O3 and TiO2 nanoparticles on stagnation point nanofluid flow in a microgravity environment

Abstract

The unsteady viscous nanofluid flow near a three-dimensional stagnation point was studied numerically under microgravity environment. g-Jitter is one of the effects occurs under microgravity environment that producing a fluctuating gravitational field. Three different types of nanoparticles were induced in the study that is copper (Cu), alumina (Al2O3), and titania (TiO2) which then produce a water-based typed of nanofluid. In addition, different shape of nanoparticle was applied on the study in analyzing the performance of each types of nanoparticle. The fluid system was then mathematically formulated into a system of partial differential equation based on physical law and principle such as conservation of mass, Newton’s second law and conservation of energy. The system of equation then undergoes semi-similar transformation technique in reducing the complexity of the problem into non dimensionless form. Keller box method was applied into the dimensionless system of equations in solving the problem numerically. The problem was analyzed in term of velocity and temperature profiles together with skin friction coefficient and Nusselt number. The results shown that temperature profile, skin friction coefficient and Nusselt number were increase while velocity profile decreased as nanoparticle volume fraction decreased. The results indicated that, the needle-shaped nanoparticles give the highest enhancement on the heat transfer of the nanofluid compared to sphere and disk-shaped nanoparticles with more than 14% significant different. In addition, alumina hold the highest velocity profile while copper hold the lowest velocity profile.