Experimental Analysis of Heat Transfer and Friction Factor in Plate Heat Exchanger with Different Orientations Using Al2O3 Nanofluids

Experimental investigations has been done to find out the heat transfer characteristics and friction factor of water based Al2O3 nanofluids as a coolant in brazed plate heat exchanger. Plate heat exchanger either use horizontally or vertically. The base plate of the plate heat exchanger was kept inclined at (0⁰, 30⁰ ,60⁰, 90⁰). The experimentation have been done on the two different concentration of the nanofluids (0.1 v/v% and 0.2 v/v%). It was observed that the heat trasnfer characterstics improves with increase in Reynolds number. It has been studied that nanofluids in a plate heat exchanger has maximum of 34% heat transfer rate over the base fluid. It has been observed that from horizontal to vertical heat transfer rate decreases with increase in Reynolds number. Results shows that there is (10-15) % has been found out when the base plate of plate heat exchanger made inclined from horizontal to 30⁰ of inclination.