Numerical study of forced convective heat transfer of Nanofluids: Comparison of different approaches

Forced convective of a nanofluid that consists of water and Al2O3 in horizontal tubes has been studied numerically. Computed results were validated with existing well established correlation. Two-phase Eulerian model has been implemented for the first time to study such a flow field. A single-phase model and two-phase mixture model formulations were also used for comparison. The comparison of calculated results with experimental values shows that the mixture model is more precise. It is illustrated that the single-phase model and the two-phase Eulerian model underestimates the Nusselt number. Effects of nanoparticles concentration on the thermal parameters are also discussed.