Free convection heat transfer of non Newtonian nanofluids under constant heat flux condition

Two different kinds of non-Newtonian nanofluids were prepared by dispersion of Al₂O₃ and TiO₂ nanoparticles in a 0.5 wt.% aqueous solution of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC). Natural convection heat transfer of non-Newtonian nanofluids in a vertical cylinder uniformly heated from below and cooled from top was investigated experimentally. Results show that the heat transfer performance of nanofluids is significantly enhanced at low particle concentrations. Increasing nanoparticle concentration has a contrary effect on the heat transfer of nanofluids, so at concentrations greater than 1 vol.% of nanoparticles the heat transfer coefficient of nanofluids is less than that of the base fluid. Indeed it seems that for both nanofluids there exists an optimum nanoparticle concentration that heat transfer coefficient passes through a maximum. The optimum concentrations of Al₂O₃ and TiO₂ nanofluids are about 0.2 and 0.1 vol.%, respectively. It is also observed that the heat transfer enhancement of TiO₂ nanofluids is higher than that of the Al₂O₃ nanofluids. The effect of enclosure aspect ratio was also investigated. As expected, the heat transfer coefficient of nanofluids as well as the base fluid increases by increasing the aspect ratio.     

Heat transfer of nanofluids in a shell and tube heat exchanger

Heat transfer characteristics of γ-Al₂O₃/water and TiO₂/water nanofluids were measured in a shell and tube heat exchanger under turbulent flow condition. The effects of Peclet number, volume concentration of suspended nanoparticles, and particle type on the heat characteristics were investigated. Based on the results, adding of naoparticles to the base fluid causes the significant enhancement of heat transfer characteristics. For both nanofluids, two different optimum nanoparticle concentrations exist. Comparison of the heat transfer behavior of two nanofluids indicates that at a certain Peclet number, heat transfer characteristics of TiO₂/water nanofluid at its optimum nanoparticle concentration are greater than those of γ-Al₂O₃/water nanofluid while γ-Al₂O₃/water nanofluid possesses better heat transfer behavior at higher nanoparticle concentrations.     

Nucleate pool boiling heat transfer characteristics of dilute Al2O3–ethyleneglycol nanofluids

Pool boiling heat transfer coefficients of dilute stabilized Al₂O₃–ethyleneglycol nanofluids as possible coolant fluid are experimentally quantified. The influence of different parameters such as heat flux, heating surface nano-roughness, concentration of nanofluids and fouling resistance on the pool boiling heat transfer coefficient of alumina nanofluids has experimentally been investigated and briefly discussed. Results demonstrated that there are two heat transfer regions with different mechanisms namely free convection and nucleate boiling heat transfer. Studies on the influence of parameter demonstrated that with increasing the heat flux, the pool boiling heat transfer coefficient of nanofluids significantly increases. In contrast, with increasing the concentration of nanofluid, due to the deposition of nanoparticles on the surface, the average roughness of the surface and the heat transfer coefficient dramatically deteriorate, while a significant increase in fouling resistance is reported. Also, studies reveal asymptotic and rectilinear behaviors of fouling resistance parameter in nucleate boiling and free convective domains.     

Thermal conductivity of non-Newtonian nanofluids: Experimental data and modeling using neural network

Three different types of nanofluids were prepared by dispersing γ-Al₂O₃, TiO₂ and CuO nanoparticles in a 0.5 wt% of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) aqueous solution. Thermal conductivity of the base fluid and nanofluids with various nanoparticle loadings at different temperatures were measured experimentally. Results show that the thermal conductivity of nanofluids is higher than the one of the base fluid and the increase in the thermal conductivity varies exponentially with the nanoparticle concentration. In addition to increase with the nanoparticle concentration, the thermal conductivity of nanofluids increases with the temperature. Neural network models were proposed to represent the thermal conductivity as a function of the temperature, nanoparticle concentration and the thermal conductivity of the nanoparticles. These models were in good agreement with the experimental data. On the other hand, the Hamilton Crosser model was only satisfactory for low nanoparticle concentrations.     

Rheological characteristics of non-Newtonian nanofluids: Experimental investigation

γ-Al₂O₃, TiO₂ and CuO nanoparticles were dispersed in a 0.5 wt.%. aqueous solution of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) to prepare three types of non-Newtonian nanofluids. Rheological characteristics of the base fluid and nanofluids with various nanoparticle concentrations at different temperatures were measured. Results show that all nanofluids as well as the base fluid exhibit pseudoplastic (shear thinning) behavior. The rheological characteristics of nanofluids and those of the base fluid are functions of temperature and particle concentrations.     

Effect of Volume Fraction of γ‐Al2O3 Nanofluid on Heat Transfer Enhancement in a Concentric Tube Heat Exchanger

In this work, γ-Al₂O₃ nanoparticles with mean diameter of 10 nm are dispersed in deionized water with four nanoparticle volume concentrations of 0.25, 0.5, 0.75, and 1%. The effect of γ-Al₂O₃/water nanofluids on the heat transfer enhancement of heat exchangers is investigated under turbulent regime for four different volumetric flow rates of 150, 200, 250, and 300 L/h. The experimental results showed that the convective heat transfer is increased by increasing particles volume fraction as well as flow rate. The maximum enhancement obtained in Nusselt number and heat transfer coefficient was 20 and 22.8%, respectively, at Reynolds number of 6026 and particle volume fraction of 1%. The experimental Nusselt numbers of nanofluids showed good agreement with the available empirical correlation at particle volume fractions of 0.25 and 0.5%. An empirical correlation is obtained to estimate the Nusselt number of nanofluid under the conditions of this work.     

Highly efficient hydrogen production from formaldehyde over Ag/γ-Al2O3 catalyst at room temperature

Herein, we demonstrate a simple and efficient process for generating hydrogen from the formaldehyde (HCHO) aqueous solution catalyzed by Ag nanoparticles dispersed on high specific surface area γ-Al₂O₃ at room temperature. Moreover, this Ag/γ-Al₂O₃ catalyst exhibits much higher capability and stability for hydrogen production than unsupported Ag nanoparticles. By further optimizing the structure, component, and amounts of Ag/γ-Al₂O₃ catalysts as well as reaction parameters such as reaction atmosphere, formaldehyde concentrations, and NaOH concentrations, the hydrogen generation rate could be greatly increased and maintained for ten hours without any decay. It may provide a general and favorable strategy for the fabrication of highly reactive and stable metal catalyst for the hydrogen production from organic aldehyde solutions.     

Experimental investigation into convective heat transfer of nanofluids at the entrance region under laminar flow conditions

This paper reports an experimental work on the convective heat transfer of nanofluids, made of γ-Al₂O₃ nanoparticles and de-ionized water, flowing through a copper tube in the laminar flow regime. The results showed considerable enhancement of convective heat transfer using the nanofluids. The enhancement was particularly significant in the entrance region, and was much higher than that solely due to the enhancement on thermal conduction. It was also shown that the classical Shah equation failed to predict the heat transfer behaviour of nanofluids. Possible reasons for the enhancement were discussed. Migration of nanoparticles, and the resulting disturbance of the boundary layer were proposed to be the main reasons.     

Pool boiling characteristics of nanofluid on flat plate based on heater surface analysis

Nucleate pool boiling of Al₂O₃ based aqueous nanofluid on flat plate heater has been studied experimentally. For boiling of nanofluid (< 0.1 vol.%) on heating surface with ratio of average surface roughness to average diameter of particles much less than unity when boiling continue to CHF, the heat transfer coefficient of nanofluid boiling reduces while critical heat flux (CHF) increases. CHF enhancement increased with volume fraction of nanoparticles. Atomic force microscope (AFM) images from boiling surface showed that after boiling of nanofluid the surface roughness increases or decreases depending on initial condition of heater surface. Changes in boiling surface topology during different regions of boiling, wettability and thermal resistance of heater surface owing to nanoparticles deposition cause to variations in nanofluids boiling performance.     

Pool Boiling of Water–Al2O3 and Water–Cu Nanofluids Outside Porous Coated Tubes

This paper deals with pool boiling of water–Al₂O₃ and water–Cu nanofluids on porous coated, horizontal tubes. Commercially available stainless-steel tubes having 10 mm outside diameter and 0.6 mm wall thickness were used to fabricate a test heater. Aluminum porous coatings 0.15 mm thick with porosity of about 40% were produced by plasma spraying. A smooth tube served as a reference tube. The experiments were conducted under different absolute operating pressures of 200 kPa, 100 kPa, and 10 kPa. Nanoparticles were tested at concentrations of 0.01%, 0.1%, and 1% by weight. In all cases tested, enhancement heat transfer was always observed during boiling of water–Al₂O₃ and water–Cu nanofluids on smooth tubes compared to boiling of distilled water. Contrary to smooth tubes, addition of even a small amount of nanoparticles resulted in deterioration of heat transfer during pool boiling of water–Al₂O₃ and water–Cu nanofluids on porous coated tubes in comparison with boiling of distilled water.     

Efficiency and effectiveness enhancement of an intercooler of two‐stage air compressor by low‐cost Al2O3/water nanofluids

The present study was aimed to utilize low‐cost alumina (Al₂O₃) nanoparticles for improving the heat transfer behavior in an intercooler of two‐stage air compressor. Experimental investigation was carried out with three different volume concentrations of 0.5%, 0.75%, and 1.0% Al₂O₃/water nanofluids to assess the performance of the intercooler, that is, counterflow heat exchanger at different loads. Thermal properties such as thermal conductivity and overall heat transfer coefficient of nanofluid increased substantially with increasing concentration of Al₂O₃ nanoparticles. Specific heat capacity of nanofluids were lower than base water. The intercooler performance parameters such as effectiveness and efficiency improved appreciably with the employment of nanofluid. The efficiency increased by about 6.1% with maximum concentration of nanofluid, that is, 1% at 3‐bar compressor load. It is concluded from the study that high concentration of Al₂O₃ nanoparticles dispersion in water would offer better heat transfer performance of the intercooler.     

Investigation of pool boiling of nanofluids using artificial neural networks and correlation development techniques

The nucleate pool boiling heat transfer characteristics of TiO₂ nanofluids are investigated to determine the important parameters' effects on the heat transfer coefficient and also to have reliable empirical correlations based on the neural network analysis. Nanofluids with various concentrations of 0.0001, 0.0005, 0.005, and 0.01 vol.% are employed. The horizontal circular test plate, made from copper with different roughness values of 0.2, 2.5 and 4 μm, is used as a heating surface. The artificial neural network (ANN) training sets have the experimental data of nucleate pool boiling tests, including temperature differences between the temperatures of the average heater surface and the liquid saturation from 5.8 to 25.21 K, heat fluxes from 28.14 to 948.03 kW m^− 2. The pool boiling heat transfer coefficient is calculated using the measured results such as current, voltage, and temperatures from the experiments. Input of the ANNs are the 8 numbers of dimensional and dimensionless values of the test section, such as thermal conductivity, particle size, physical properties of the fluid, surface roughness, concentration rate of nanoparticles and wall superheating, while the outputs of the ANNs are the heat flux and experimental pool boiling heat transfer coefficient from the analysis. The nucleate pool boiling heat transfer characteristics of TiO₂ nanofluids are modeled to decide the best approach, using several ANN methods such as multi-layer perceptron (MLP), generalized regression neural network (GRNN) and radial basis networks (RBF). Elimination process of the ANN methods is performed together with the copper and aluminum test sections by means of a 4-fold cross validation algorithm. The ANNs performances are measured by mean relative error criteria with the use of unknown test sets. The performance of the method of MLP with 10-20-1 architecture, GRNN with the spread coefficient 0.7 and RBFs with the spread coefficient of 1000 and a hidden layer neuron number of 80 are found to be in good agreement, predicting the experimental pool boiling heat transfer coefficient with deviations within the range of ± 5% for all tested conditions. Dependency of output of the ANNs from input values is investigated and new ANN based heat transfer coefficient correlations are developed, taking into account the input parameters of ANNs in the paper.     

Pool boiling heat transfer of functionalized nanofluid under sub-atmospheric pressures

A water-based functionalized nanofluid was made by surface functionalizing the ordinary silica nanoparticles. The functionalized nanoparticles were water-soluble and could still keep dispersing well even at the mass concentration of 10% and no sedimentation was observed. An experimental study was carried out to investigate the pool boiling heat transfer characteristics of functionalized nanofluid at atmospheric and sub-atmospheric pressures. The same work was also performed for DI water and traditional nanofluid consisted of water and ordinary silica nanoparticles for the comparison. Experimental results show that there exist great differences between pool boiling heat transfer characteristics of functionalized and traditional nanofluid. The differences mainly result from the changes of surface characteristics of the heated surface during the boiling. A porous deposition layer exists on the heated surface during the boiling of traditional nanofluid; however, no layer exists for functionalized nanofluid. Functionalized nanofluid can slightly increase the heat transfer coefficient comparing with the water case, but has nearly no effects on the critical heat flux. It is mainly due to the changes of the thermoproperties of nanofluids. Traditional nanofluid can significantly enhance the critical heat flux, but conversely deteriorates the heat transfer coefficient. It is mainly due to effect of surface characteristics of the heated surface during the boiling. Therefore, the pool boiling heat transfer of nanofluids is governed by both the thermoproperties of nanofluids and the surface characteristics of the heated surface.     

Experimental analysis of saturated pool boiling of acetone and isopropanol with added surfactant sodium lauryl sulfate over aluminum surface

The present article reports a detailed experimental study to know the effect of adding surfactants to different base fluids. For this purpose, an aqueous solution of different concentrations of surfactant with base fluids was formed and then heated at varying heat flux in a pool boiling apparatus. Acetone and isopropanol have been used as base/boiling fluids with anionic surfactant sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) of 200, 400, 600, 800, and 1000 PPM concentration. The data obtained by heating surfactant-based fluids has been compared to the data of heating pure base fluids to establish the role of surfactants and the importance of surfactant concentration, that is, critical micelle concentration (CMC) in pool boiling augmentation. CMC value was found in the case of pool boiling of acetone with an SLS concentration of 400 PPM. However, the CMC value is found to be a lower value of SLS concentration of 200 PPM in the pool boiling process of isopropanol. Therefore, it is interesting to investigate the possible causes of such heat transfer phenomena with different values of surfactant concentration. Variations in heat flux change the degree of superheat of the aluminum heater substrate. The heat transfer performance is studied, and finally, a semi-empirical correlation is proposed to know the heat transfer coefficient and its dependency over the concentration of surfactant.     

Estimation of heat transfer coefficient and friction factor in the transition flow with low volume concentration of Al2O3 nanofluid flowing in a circular tube and with twisted tape insert

Experiments to evaluate heat transfer coefficient and friction factor for flow in a tube and with twisted tape inserts in the transition range of flow with Al₂O₃ nanofluid are conducted. The results showed considerable enhancement of convective heat transfer with Al₂O₃ nanofluids compared to flow with water. It is observed that the equation of Gleninski applicable in transitional flow range for single-phase fluids showed considerable deviation when compared with values obtained with nanofluid. The heat transfer coefficient of nanofluid flowing in a tube with 0.1% volume concentration is 23.7% higher when compared with water at number of 9000. Heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop with nanofluid has been experimentally determined with tapes of different twist ratios and found to deviate with values obtained from equations developed for single-phase flow. A regression equation is developed to estimate the Nusselt number valid for both water and nanofluid flowing in the transition flow Reynolds number range in circular plain tube and with tape inserts. The maximum friction factor with twisted tape at 0.1% nanofluid volume concentration is 1.21 times that of water flowing in a plain tube.     

Preparation and pool boiling characteristics of copper nanofluids over a flat plate heater

The copper nanoparticles of average size of 10 nm have been prepared by the sputtering method and characterized through atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The pool boiling heat transfer characteristics of 0.25%, 0.5% and 1.0% by weight concentrations of copper nanoparticles has been studied. Different copper based nanofluids were prepared in both, distilled water and distilled water with 9.0 wt% of sodium lauryl sulphate anionic surfactant (SDS). The pool boiling heat transfer data were acquired for the boiling of nanofluids over a 30 mm square and 0.44 mm thick stainless steel plate heater. The experimental results show that for the critical heat flux of pure water is 80% higher than that of water–surfactant fluid. Also, it was found that the critical heat flux for 0.25%, 0.5% and 1.0% concentrations of copper nanoparticles in copper–water nanofluids are 25%, 40% and 48% higher than that of pure water. But in the case of copper–water with surfactant nanofluids comparing with pure water, the CHF decreases to 75%, 68%, and 62% for respective concentrations of copper nanoparticles. The heat transfer coefficient decreases with increase of nanoparticles concentration in both water–copper and water–copper with surfactant nanofluids.     

Experimental investigation of turbulent flow and convective heat transfer characteristics of alumina water nanofluids in fully developed flow regime

In this paper the convective heat transfer and friction factor of the nanofluids in a circular tube with constant wall temperature under turbulent flow conditions were investigated experimentally. Al₂O₃ nanoparticles with diameters of 40 nm dispersed in distilled water with volume concentrations of 0.1–2 vol.% were used as the test fluid. All physical properties of the Al₂O₃–water nanofluids needed to calculate the pressure drop and the convective heat transfer coefficient were measured. The results show that the heat transfer coefficient of nanofluid is higher than that of the base fluid and increased with increasing the particle concentrations. Moreover, the Reynolds number has a little effect on heat transfer enhancement. The experimental data were compared with traditional convective heat transfer and viscous pressure drop correlations for fully developed turbulent flow. It was found that if the measured thermal conductivities and viscosities of the nanofluids were used in calculating the Reynolds, Prandtl, and Nusselt numbers, the existing correlations perfectly predict the convective heat transfer and viscous pressure drop in tubes.     

Pool boiling of nanofluids: Comprehensive review of existing data and limited new data

Nanofluid pool boiling experimental studies have shown mixed results. Recent literature is reviewed and compared here. It is demonstrated here that experiments can be fit to the traditional Rohsenow correlation by changing the surface constant, C_sf. Therefore, this study suggests surface conditions are responsible for varying results. Some limited new experimental data are reported for Al₂O₃/H₂O nanofluids using the hot wire method. Relative to the baseline of pure water, boiling incipience occurs 2–3 °C earlier, heat transfer is enhanced 25–40%, but sub-cooled boiling deteriorates. These results are essentially in agreement with most earlier studies showing enhancement [S.K. Das, N. Putra, W. Roetzel, Pool boiling of nanofluids on horizontal narrow tubes, Int. J. Multiphase Flow 29 (8) (2003) 1237–1247; D. Wen, Y. Ding, Experimental investigation into the pool boiling heat transfer of aqueous based c-alumina nanofluids, J. Nanoparticle Res. 7 (2005) 265–274; S. Witharana, Boiling of refrigerants on enhanced surfaces and boiling of nanofluids, Ph.D. thesis, The Royal Institute of Technology, 2003; S.M. You, J.H. Kim, K.H. Kim, Effect of nanoparticles on critical heat flux of water in pool boiling heat transfer, Appl. Phys. Lett. 83 (2003) 3374–3376].     

Assessment of the effectiveness of nanofluids for single-phase and two-phase heat transfer in micro-channels

Experiments were performed to explore the micro-channel cooling benefits of water-based nanofluids containing small concentrations of Al₂O₃. The high thermal conductivity of nanoparticles is shown to enhance the single-phase heat transfer coefficient, especially for laminar flow. Higher heat transfer coefficients were achieved mostly in the entrance region of micro-channels. However, the enhancement was weaker in the fully developed region, proving that nanoparticles have an appreciable effect on thermal boundary layer development. Higher concentrations also produced greater sensitivity to heat flux. Despite this enhancement, the overall cooling effectiveness of nanoparticles was quite miniscule because of the large axial temperature rise associated with the decreased specific heat for the nanofluid compared to the base fluid. For two-phase cooling, nanoparticles caused catastrophic failure by depositing into large clusters near the channel exit due to localized evaporation once boiling commenced. These and other practical disadvantages bring into question the overall merit of using nanofluids in micro-channel heat sinks.     

Numerical investigation of effective parameters in convective heat transfer of nanofluids flowing under a laminar flow regime

This article presents a numerical investigation on heat transfer performance and pressure drop of nanofluids flows through a straight circular pipe in a laminar flow regime and constant heat flux boundary condition. Al₂O₃, CuO, carbon nanotube (CNT) and titanate nanotube (TNT) nanoparticles dispersed in water and ethylene glycol/water with particle concentrations ranging between 0 and 6 vol.% were used as working fluids for simulating the heat transfer and flow behaviours of nanofluids. The proposed model has been validated with the available experimental data and correlations. The effects of particle concentrations, particle diameter, particles Brownian motions, Reynolds number, type of the nanoparticles and base fluid on the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of nanofluids were determined and discussed in details. The results indicated that the particle volume concentration, Brownian motion and aspect ratio of nanoparticles similar to flow Reynolds number increase the heat transfer coefficient, while the nanoparticle diameter has an opposite effect on the heat transfer coefficient. Finally, the present study provides some considerations for the appropriate choice of the nanofluids for practical applications.