Forced Convection of Al2O3–Cu, TiO2–SiO2, FWCNT–Fe3O4, and ND–Fe3O4 Hybrid Nanofluid in Porous Media

Abstract

Adding nanoparticles to fluid has led to a new class of fluids named as nanofluids. Different concentrations and its effective cooling have attracted many engineering applications to test this new fluid. Lately, important heat enhancement has been observed by dispersing two distinct nanoparticles in the regular fluid. This type of hybrid nanofluid has led researchers to study its effectiveness in the cooling process. Here, we experimentally studied the forced convection of Al2O3–Cu hybrid nanofluid in porous media at a constant flow rate and heating condition. The numerical code after being calibrated with the experimental results is used to predict the effectiveness in cooling by using a set of hybrid fluid of TiO2–SiO2, MWCNT–Fe3O4, and ND–Fe3O4 at different concentrations. In the experiment, we used water and a water–ethylene glycol mixture as base fluids. The results revealed that the hybrid fluid contributed to heat enhancement levied increased pumping power. However, the index of efficiency, obtained by combining the Nusselt number and pressure drop, indicated that the best hybrid fluid for such an application is ND–Fe3O4 in the water–ethylene glycol mixture.