Experimental investigation of forced convective heat transfer in nanofluids

• Main Author: Tan, Kah Kee.
• Other Authors: Leong Kai Choong
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Mechanical engineering
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/46110
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Nanofluids are suspensions of nanoparticles (1 to 100 nm) in traditional base fluids and are seen as potential candidates to enhance heat transfer in various engineering applications. The main objective of this study was to investigate the forced convective heat transfer performance of four different types of nanofluids - γ-Al2O3/DIW, γ-Al2O3/50%EG, Fe3O4/DIW and Fe3O4/50%EG (φ = 0.5%, 1.0% and 2.0%) under laminar flow regime (200 < Re < 1700) and constant wall temperature boundary condition. An experimental setup was designed and fabricated to investigate the effects of the type of nanoparticle, the type of base fluid, the volume fraction of nanoparticles and the volumetric flow rate on the forced convective heat transfer performance of these four different types of nanofluids. The experimental setup was calibrated and validated by using crushed melting ice and deionized water, respectively. The experimental results showed that an addition of a small amount of nanoparticles into the base fluids increased the convective heat transfer enhancement significantly. The experimental results also showed that the average Nusselt number increased with increasing Peclet number and there was an optimum volume fraction of nanoparticles present in each type of nanofluid for achieving the maximum convective heat transfer enhancement. Besides the increase in the thermal conductivity of the nanofluids, other factors such as the chaotic movement and the dispersion effects of the nanoparticles in the base fluids might have contributed to the overall convective heat transfer performance of the nanofluids.