Numerical investigation on heat transfer enhancement inside a rectangular microchannel with vortex generator using TiO2, Cuo-water nanofluids

Abstract

One of the innovative ways to improve heat transfer properties of heat exchangers, is using nanofluids instead of traditional fluids. Due to presence of metal and oxides of metal particles in nanofluids structure, they have better potential in different environments and conditions than conventional fluids and having higher thermal conductivity causes improvements in heat transfer properties. In this research flow of two different nanofluids through a rectangular microchannel consisting of different number of longitudinal vortex generators (lvgs), has been investigated. Simulations conducted under laminar flow boundary condition and for different Reynolds numbers from 100 to 250. Considered volumetric concentration in this paper is 1, 1/6 and 2/3 %. Results showed, nanofluids and the LVGs remarkably enhance the heat transfer rates inside the microchannel. havg improved with increasing the nanoparticles volume concentrations and Reynolds number, whereas the opposite trends observed for pressure drop. havg improved for 4 to 12 and 9 to 18% for TiO2 and CuO nanofluids, respectively for different volume concentrations in simple microchannel. For lvg-enhanced microchannel the amount of improvements is about 9-14 and 5-10% for CuO and TiO2, respectively. Also using vortex generators alone improved havg for 15-25% for different number of lvgs.