The European Physical Journal Plus | 2021
Hydrothermal analysis and optimization of heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of different nanofluids in a circular tube with turbulator
Abstract
The main focus of this paper is to investigate the impact of five different conventional fluids on heat transfer characteristics of a horizontal tube including a turbulator. Deionized water, ethylene glycol, and three combinations of these two fluids have been assessed in the first section. Also, three kinds of nanofluids include SiO2/water, MWCNT/water, and hybrid SiO2/MWCNT/water with 0.2% volume fraction have been employed in the second part. Thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of fluids have been experimentally measured and been applied to the simulations. The obtained results from numerical analysis indicated by increasing the ethylene glycol percentage in working fluid, the heat transfer coefficient decreased. Also, among the investigated nanofluids, hybrid nanofluid possesses superior thermal performance, which is about 11%. In the last section, the statistical approach with response surface methodology has been utilized to correlate and optimize the heat transfer coefficient and pressure drop of different fluids.