Analysis of alumina/water nanofluid in thermally developing region of a circular tube

Abstract

Analysis of Al₂O₃/water nanofluid flow in thermally developing region of a circular tube is the subject of present numerical study. In order to consider the hydrodynamically fully developed condition in the tube, a fully developed velocity profile is defined in the inlet section of tube. Three-dimensional computations are performed for a wide variety of nanoparticle concentrations (1 ≤ γ ≤ 10%). On the other hand, for examination of nanoparticle size, effects on the thermal characteristics, two different particle sizes of d_p = 25 and 75 nm are applied. The resulting governing equations are solved numerically by means of the finite volume method. For enhanced visualization, different results are presented in thermally developing region. It is obtained that suspending the Al₂O₃ nanoparticles in pure water increases the thermal boundary layer growing rate. In addition, an increase on the heat transfer rate is observed in thermal boundary layer using the Al₂O₃ nanoparticles in which this enhancement varies as a function of nanoparticle size and nanoparticle volume concentration. However, it is found that the role of nanoparticle volume concentration on the thermal characteristics such as thermal boundary layer growing rate, temperature gradient, and heat transfer enhancement is significantly important comparing to the nanoparticle size.