Experimental study of turbulent convective heat transfer and pressure drop of dilute CuO/water nanofluid inside a circular tube

Turbulent convective heat transfer performance and pressure drop of very dilute (less than 0.24% volume) CuO/water nanofluid flowing through a circular tube were investigated experimentally. Measurements showed that addition of small amounts of nanosized CuO particles to the base fluid increased heat transfer coefficients considerably. In average 25% increase in heat transfer coefficient was observed with 20% penalty in pressure drop. Enhancement ratio did not show significant variation with concentration of CuO in nanofluid in the range studied in this work.