Numerically hydrothermal fully developed forced convective hybrid nanofluid flow through annular sector duct

Abstract

In this paper, fully developed forced convective flow properties of hybrid nanofluid through annular sector duct are discussed. The studies of hybrid nanofluid, i.e. the combination of a nanofluid (nanoparticles plus water) with another nanoparticles’ volume fraction, are considered. Hybrid nanofluids become most important due to enhancement in the heat transfer rate. Copper oxide (CuO)–water is taken as the nanofluid. The volume fraction of CuO nanoparticles in water is kept fixed at 4%, whereas the volume fractions of Cu nanoparticles are taken in the range of 0–4% in this study. Under the assumption of hydrodynamically and thermally fully developed flow, the deviation in the velocity components along the axial direction vanishes in the case of momentum equations; however, the deviation in the temperature becomes constant in the case of energy equation. After dimensionless analysis, the finite volume method is applied to find the numerical solutions for velocity, temperature, heat transfer rate and fanning friction factor. During physical analysis, it has been concluded that the percentage enhancement in heat transfer rate is comparably more than fanning friction factor when we increase the volume fraction of Cu nanoparticles in the CuO–water nanofluid. Furthermore, the same observation has been noticed in the case of heat transfer rate when the platelet shape factor of the nanoparticles has been used instead of brick and cylinder shape factors. Increase in fRe is 8.01% when we increase the Cu nanoparticles’ volume fraction from 1% to 4%, whereas the increments in Nu are 15.09%, 18.56% and 20.81% for the brick-, cylinder- and platelet-shaped nanoparticles, respectively, for all values of the ratio of radii, [Formula: see text], and apex angle, [Formula: see text], in both thermal cases.