The study of laminar convective heat transfer of CuO/water nanofluid through an equilateral triangular duct at constant wall heat flux

The present paper focuses on the heat transfer of an equilateral triangular duct by employing the CuO/water nanofluid in a laminar flow and under constant heat flux condition. The triangular ducts were used due to their ease of creation and high compaction. They have less pressure drop when compared to the circular and non‐circular ducts and their other attributes are very useful in industrial applications. These reasons cause their heat transfer characteristics to be very important. In this paper, to improve the heat transfer of an equilateral triangular duct, a CuO/water nanofluid was employed. The nanofluid was conducted through an equilateral triangular duct with a constant wall heat flux. Results show that the experimental heat transfer coefficient of the CuO/water nanofluid is more than that of distilled water. Also, the experimental heat transfer coefficient of a CuO/water nanofluid is greater than the theoretical one. The heat transfer enhancement of the equilateral triangular duct increases with the nanofluid volume concentration as well as the Peclet number. So a 41% enhancement in the convective heat transfer coefficient for a 0.8% CuO/water nanofluid can be seen when compared to pure water. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley Online Library ( wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj ). DOI 10.1002/htj.21011