Numerical investigation of pressure drop and heat transfer in developing laminar and turbulent nanofluid flows

Abstract

This paper concerns the study of laminar and turbulent force convection heat transfer and pressure drop between horizontal parallel plates with a nanofluid composed of Al2O3 and water. A set of governing equations are solved using a non-staggered SIMPLE procedure for the velocity-pressure coupling. For the convection-diffusion terms a power-law scheme is employed. A modified k-ε model with a two-layer technique for the near-wall region has been used to predict the turbulent viscosity. The effects of nanoparticle volume fraction in the base fluid on laminar and turbulent flow variables are presented and discussed. The velocity and temperature profiles, friction factor, pressure coefficient and Nusselt number at different Reynolds numbers in the entrance region for both the laminar and turbulent flow regimes are reported under different thermal boundary conditions. The results show that the effect of the presence of nanoparticles in the base fluid on hydraulic and thermal parameters for the turbulent flow is not very significant, while the rate of heat transfer for the laminar flow with nanoparticles is greater than that of the base liquid. Furthermore, the thermal boundary layer and consequently the Nusselt number more quickly reach their fully developed values by increasing the percentage of nanoparticles in the base fluid for the laminar flow regime, while no changes in the trend are observed for the turbulent flow. © 2013 The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.