Investigation of Effect of Aluminium Oxide Nanoparticles on the Thermal Properties of Water-Based Fluids in a Double Tube Heat Exchanger

Abstract

The thermal behavior of aluminium oxide-water nanofluid in a double pipe carbon steel heat exchanger was investigated in the present study. The overall heat transfer coefficient, Nusselt, and heat transfer coefficient of nanofluid were compared with the base fluid. The volume fraction of the nanoparticles was 1%. By adding nanoparticles to the fluid, the thermal properties of the base fluid improved significantly. The hot and cold fluid flow was considered counter-current, and the nanofluid was pumped into the inner tube and once into the outer tube, and the flow rate of each fluid was 0.05 kg/s. The convective heat transfer and the overall heat transfer coefficient enhanced 94% and 253% for the hot fluid flow in the outer tube and 308 % and 144% for the hot fluid flow in the inner tube, respectively. The pressure drop calculations also showed that the pressure drop would not change significantly when using nanofluid.