An Experimental Study on Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of CuO-Water Nanofluid

Abstract

Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of water based CuO nanofluid inside a horizontal tube were investigated experimentally. The upper limitation of the particle volume fraction with respect to heat transfer performance was also found. CuO-water nanofluids with volume fractions of 0.5%, 1%, 2%, and 4% were prepared by dispersing the CuO nanoparticles with an average diameter of 33 nm into deionised water. Experiments were carried out under the steady-state, constant heat flux, and turbulent flow regime conditions. The variations of the average Nusselt number and the friction factor with the Reynolds number were presented. For all given particle volume concentrations, heat transfer enhancements were calculated. It was concluded that the particle volume concentrations higher than 1% vol. were not appropriate with respect to the heat transfer performance of the CuO-water nanofluid. No heat transfer enhancement was observed at Re = 4.000. The highest heat transfer enhancement was achieved at Re = 16.000 and ф = 0.005.