Convective Heat Transfer and Pumping Power Requirement Using Nanofluid for the Flow Through Corrugated Channel

Convective heat transfer rate for turbulent flow using nanofluid through both plain and corrugated channel has been investigated numerically in the present study. Three different types of nanofluids namely Al₂O₃-water, TiO₂-water and CuO-water of different volume fractions (1%, 2%, 3%, 4% and 5%), are used as the working fluid flowing through the channel. The corrugated channels have wall geometries of trapezoidal shape of different amplitude-wavelength ratios. Grid independence study was carried out for all the geometries. The obtained results in case of base fluid-water flowing through parallel plate channel have been validated with well-established correlations. The study has been conducted by finite volume method to solve the transport equation for the momentum, energy and turbulence quantities using single phase model of the nanofluids where the thermophysical properties of the nanofluids are calculated by using different correlations from the literature. In this study, the heat transfer enhancement using nanofluids compared to that using base fluid-water is presented for a range of Reynolds number- 15000 to 40000. The pumping power required for the flow through the channels increases with the increase in the viscosity of the fluid which justifies the increase in pumping power requirement in case of nanofluids compared to that with water. While using corrugation at the wall of the channels, in addition to the enhancement in the convective heat transfer rate, there is an increase in the pumping power requirement for the same Reynolds number. However, for a given requirement of heat transfer rate, the required pumping power can be reduced by using nanofluids. This study includes the trend and limit of volume fraction of nanofluid during this pumping power reduction phenomenon. The results show that with the increase in the volume fraction of the nanofluids, the convective heat transfer rate increases which is same for all the geometries of the fluid domain. Addition of nanofluid reduces the pumping power requirement for a constant heat transfer rate. The volume fraction of the nanofluids with which the maximum reduction of pumping power takes place at the optimum working condition is also found in the present study. This study draws a comparison among three different nanofluids in terms of the enhancement in the convective heat transfer rate and corresponding pumping power requirement for the flow through the trapezoidal shaped corrugated channel of various amplitude-wavelength ratios in order to find out the best nanofluids for its optimum results within a specified range of working conditions.