Experimental Investigation of Heat Transfer Enhancement of Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Using SnO2-Water and Ag-Water Nanofluids

Abstract

Abstract In this investigation, the performance of the shell and tube heat exchanger operated with tin nanoparticles-water (SnO2-W) and silver nanoparticles-water (Ag-W) nanofluids was experimentally analyzed. SnO2-W and Ag-W nanofluids were prepared without any surface medication of nanoparticles. The effects of volume concentrations of nanoparticles on thermal conductivity, viscosity, heat transfer coefficient, fiction factor, Nusselt number, and pressure drop were analyzed. The results showed that thermal conductivity of nanofluids increased by 29% and 39% while adding 0.1 wt% of SnO2 and Ag nanoparticles, respectively, due to the unique intrinsic property of the nanoparticles. Further, the convective heat transfer coefficient was enhanced because of improvement of thermal conductivity of the two phase mixture and friction factor increased due to the increases of viscosity and density of nanofluids. Moreover, Ag nanofluid showed superior pressure drop compared to SnO2 nanofluid owing to the improvement of thermophysical properties of nanofluid.