Experimental Study on Forced Convective Heat Transfer with Low Volume Fraction of CuO/Water Nanofluid

• Published in: Energies (Basel) Vol. 2; no. 1; pp. 97 - 119
• Main Authors: Asirvatham, Lazarus Godson, Vishal, Nandigana, Gangatharan, Senthil Kumar, Lal, Dhasan Mohan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.03.2009
• Subjects: Convective heat transfer; Copper; CuO nanofluid; Flow velocity; Heat conductivity; Heat transfer; Laminar flow; Nanofluid; Nanoheat transfer; Nanoparticles; Reynolds number; Soil erosion; Thermal conductivity enhancement
• ISSN: 1996-1073; 1996-1073
• DOI: 10.3390/en20100097

The present work is an experimental study of steady state convective heat transfer of de-ionized water with a low volume fraction (0.003% by volume) of copper oxide (CuO) nanoparticles dispersed to form a nanofluid that flows through a copper tube. The effect of mass flow rate ranging from (0.0113 kg/s to 0.0139 kg/s) and the effect of inlet temperatures at 100C and 17 0C on the heat transfer coefficient are studied on the entry region under laminar flow condition. The results have shown 8% enhancement of the convective heat transfer coefficient of the nanofluid even with a low volume concentration of CuO nanoparticles. The heat transfer enhancement was increased considerably as the Reynolds number increased. Possible reasons for the enhancement are discussed. Nanofluid thermo-physical properties and chaotic movement of ultrafine particles which accelerate the energy exchange process are proposed to be the main reasons for the observed heat transfer enhancement. A correlation for convective heat transfer coefficient of nanofluids, based on transport property and D/x for 8 mm tube has been evolved. The correlation predicts variation in the local Nusselt number along the flow direction of the nanofluid. A good agreement (±10%) is seen between the experimental and predicted results.