Modeling of Forced Convection Heat Transfer of Al2O3/Water Nanofluid

Heat transfer fluids such as water, oil, and ethylene glycol play an important role in many industrial sectors including power generation, chemical production, air-conditioning, transportation, and microelectronics. Nanofluids are a new class of heat transfer fluids consisting of nanometer sized particles (less than 100 nm) dispersed in convectional fluids. This paper reports a numerical study on the force convection heat transfer and flow characteristics of a Al2O3/water nanofluid (0 φ 0.6). The heat transfer coefficient of the nanofluid in a horizontal copper tube, under turbulent flow conditions (8000 Re 51000) with a single phase approach were investigated. The Nusselt number was enhanced with increasing the Reynolds number and nanoparticles volume fractions. Besides, with improving the heat transfer coefficient was increased by using nanofluid. Modeling outcomes were compared with the experimental data. This comparison showed good agreement between the experimental data and the simulated results.