2018 Volume 13 Issue 2 Pages JTST0027
The present work is concerned of numerical simulation of three dimensional laminar forced and mixed convection of two nanofluids; Al2O3-water and Cu-water flowing through a horizontal tube submitted to a constant and uniform heat flux. Based on single-phase approach, three dimensional conservation equations of mass, momentum and energy with the appropriate boundary conditions have been solved using finite volume method with the schemes of spatial and temporal discretization of second order precision and by using the SIMPLER algorithm with the Tri-Diagonal Matrix Algorithm (TDMA). At a fixed Reynolds number Re = 300 and Grashof number equal to 0 and 5×105. The results show an increase in heat transfer ratio compared to pure water at several volume fractions for both alumina and copper based nanofluids. At a fixed volume fraction φ = 4%, the axial Nusselt number does not increase significantly in forced convection case. However, in mixed convection case the axial Nusselt number augments considerably especially with Cu-water nanofluid. On the other hand, secondary flow and axial velocity are slightly affected by nanoparticles volume fraction. It is proved in this study that nanofluids can also contributes to optimise pipes compactness, using 2% and 4% of alumina and copper respectively dispersed in water flowing through a pipe with given length gives higher axial Nusselt number ratio compared to pipes larger length but containing pure water.
