Prediction of laminar forced convection of zirconia/water nanofluid in a vertical tube

Forced convective heat transfer of a nanofluid consists of water and zirconia with diameter equal to 50 nm through a vertical tube under constant heat flux boundary condition has been investigated numerically. Single phase and two phase mixture models have been used for studying thermal behavior of nanofluid inside the tube. Effects of Reynolds number and nanoparticle volume fraction on the thermal behavior of nanofluid have been studied. The results showed that relative differences between average Nusselt number of water and nanofluids inside the tube increased as the Reynolds number increased.