Water–Copper Nanofluid Free Convective Heat Transfer Between Concentric Cones

Abstract

Natural convective heat transfer has been quantified around a right conical electronic assembly generating during operation a constant heat flux and contained in a coaxial conical enclosure maintained isothermal at low temperature. Heat exchange is done through a water based-copper nanoparticle whose volume fraction varies between 0% (pure water) and 10%. Nusselt number based on the generated heat flux and distance between the cones has been determined in a wide range of the Rayleigh number varying between 3.32 × 105 and 6.74 × 107. The results of this work show that the natural convective heat transfer is between 7.5 and 24.4% higher than those concerning a cubic assembly cooled by means of a water base-ZnO nanofluid. A new correlation of the Nusselt–Rayleigh type is proposed, obtained by means of a three-dimensional numerical approach based on the volume control method using the SIMPLE algorithm. It can be used for the correct thermal sizing of the considered electronic assembly.