HEAT TRANSFER ENHANCEMENT USING NANO FLUIDS

Heat Transfer Enhancement

Using Nano Fluids

Prepared By-
Tushar Atriek

(15ume027)

Tushar Atriek (15ume027)

 HEAT TRANSFER ENHANCEMENT USING NANO FLUIDS

Abstract
There has been increasing interest in nanofluid and its use in heat transfer
enhancement. Nanofluids are suspensions of nanoparticles in fluids that show
significant enhancement of their properties at modest nanoparticle concentrations.
Nanofluids are quasi single-phase medium containing stable colloidal dispersion of
ultrafine or nanometric metallic or ceramic particles in a given fluid. This article covers
recent advances in the last decade by researchers in heat transfer enhancement with
nanofluids as the working fluid. A brief overview has been presented to understand the
evolution of this concept, possible mechanism of heat conduction by nanofluid and
areas of application. To order put the nanofluid heat transfer technologies into practice,
fundamental studies are greatly needed to understand the physical mechanisms.

Introduction
A wide variety of industrial processes involve the transfer of heat energy. Throughout any
industrial facility, heat must be added, removed, or moved from one process stream to
another and it has become a major task for industrial necessity. These processes provide a
source for energy recovery and process fluid heating/cooling.

The enhancement of heating or cooling in an industrial process may create a saving in

energy, reduce process time, raise thermal rating and lengthen the working life of
equipment. Some processes are even affected qualitatively by the action of enhanced heat
transfer.

There are several methods to improve the heat transfer efficiency. Some methods are
utilization of extended surfaces, application of vibration to the heat transfer surfaces, and
usage of micro channels. Heat transfer efficiency can also be improved by increasing the
thermal conductivity of the working fluid. Commonly used heat transfer fluids such as
water, ethylene glycol, and engine oil have relatively low thermal conductivities, when
compared to the thermal conductivity of solids. High thermal conductivity of solids can be
used to increase the thermal conductivity of a fluid by adding small solid particles to that
fluid. The feasibility of the usage of such suspensions of solid particles with sizes on the
order of 2 millimeters or micrometers was previously investigated by several researchers
and the following drawbacks were observed by the researchers-

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1. The particles settle rapidly, forming a layer on the surface and reducing the heat
transfer capacity of the fluid.

2. If the circulation rate of the fluid is increased, sedimentation is reduced, but the erosion
of the heat transfer devices, pipelines, etc., increases rapidly.

3. The large size of the particles tends to clog the flow channels, particularly if the cooling
channels are narrow.

4. The pressure drop in the fluid increases considerably.

5. Finally, conductivity enhancement based on particle concentration is achieved (i.e., the

greater the particle volume fraction is, the greater the enhancement—and greater the
problems, as indicated above).

Thus, the route of suspending particles in liquid was a well-known but rejected option for
heat transfer applications due to these drawbacks.

However, the emergence of modern materials technology provided the opportunity to

produce nanometer-sized particles which are quite different from the parent material in
mechanical, thermal, electrical, and optical properties.

1.1 EMERGENCE OF NANOFLUIDS

Nanofluids consist of a base fluid enriched with Nano size particles (less than 100 nm).
Nanofluids are characterized by an enrichment of a base fluid like Water, Ethylene glycol or
oil with nanoparticles in variety of types like Metals, Oxides, Carbides, Carbon. Mostly
commonly recalled Nanofluids could be typified as TiO2 in water, CuO in water, Al2O3 in
water, ZnO in Ethylene glycol. Today Nanofluids have got wide range of applications in
transportation, power generation, nuclear, space, microelectronics, biomedical and many
areas where heat removal is involved.

Nanofluid is a new kind of heat transfer medium, containing nanoparticles (1–100 nm)
which are uniformly and stably distributed in a base fluid. These distributed nanoparticles,

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generally a metal or metal oxide greatly enhance the thermal conductivity of the nanofluid,
increases conduction and convection coefficients, allowing for more heat transfer.

Nanofluids have been considered for applications as advanced heat transfer fluids for
almost two decades. However, due to the wide variety and the complexity of the nanofluid
systems, no agreement has been achieved on the magnitude of potential benefits of using
nanofluids for heat transfer applications. Compared to conventional solid–liquid
suspensions for heat transfer intensifications, nanofluids having properly dispersed
nanoparticles possess the following advantages:

• High specific surface area and therefore more heat transfer surface between particles
and fluids.

• High dispersion stability with predominant Brownian motion of particles.

• Reduced pumping power as compared to pure liquid to achieve equivalent heat

transfer intensification.

• Reduced particle clogging as compared to conventional slurries, thus promoting system

miniaturization.

• Adjustable properties, including thermal conductivity and surface wettability, by

varying particle concentrations to suit different applications.

The first test with nanofluids gave more encouraging features than they were thought to
possess. The four unique features observed are listed below (Das and Choi, 2006).

• Abnormal enhancement of thermal conductivity. The most important feature observed

in nanofluids was an abnormal rise in thermal conductivity, far beyond expectations
and much higher than any theory could predict.
• Stability. Nanofluids have been reported to be stable over months using a stabilizing
agent.

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• Small concentration and Newtonian behaviour. Large enhancement of conductivity was

achieved with a very small concentration of particles that completely maintained the
Newtonian behaviour of the fluid. The rise in viscosity was nominal; hence, pressure
drop was increased only marginally.
• Particles size dependence. Unlike the situation with micro slurries, the enhancement of
conductivity was found to depend not only on particle concentration but also on
particle size. In general, with decreasing particle size, an increase in enhancement was
observed.
The above potentials provided the thrust necessary to begin research in nanofluids, with the
expectation that these fluids will play an important role in developing the next generation of
cooling technology. The result can be a highly conducting and stable nanofluid with exciting
newer applications in the future.

1.2 PREPARATION OF NANOFLUID

There are two primary methods to prepare nanofluids: A two-step process in which nanoparticles
or nanotubes are first produced as a dry powder. The resulting nanoparticles are then dispersed
into a fluid in a second step. Single-step nanofluid processing methods have also been developed.

Two-Step Methods
Several studies, including the earliest investigations of nanofluids, used a two-step process in which
nanoparticles are first produced as a dry powder. This method is more extensively used to
produce nanofluids because Nano powders are commercially available nowadays. A variety of
physical, chemical, and laser-based methods are available for the production of the nanoparticles
to be used for nanofluids.

One-Step Methods
The nanoparticles may agglomerate during the drying, storage, and transportation process, leading
to difficulties in the following dispersion stage of two-step method. Consequently, the stability
and thermal conductivity of nanofluid are not ideal. In addition, the production cost is high.

2.1 Thermo physical properties of nanofluids

Thermo physical properties of the nanofluids are quite essential to predict their heat
transfer behaviour. It is extremely important in the control for the industrial and energy
saving perspectives. There is great industrial interest in nanofluids. Nanoparticles have great
potential to improve the thermal transport properties compared to conventional particles

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fluids suspension, millimetre and micrometer sized particles. In the last decade, nanofluids
have gained significant attention due to its enhanced thermal properties.

Experimental studies show that thermal conductivity of nanofluids depends on many factors
such as particle volume fraction, particle material, particle size, particle shape, base fluid
material, and temperature. Amount and types of additives and the acidity of the nanofluid
were also shown to be effective in the thermal conductivity enhancement.

The transport properties of nanofluid: dynamic thermal conductivity and viscosity are not
only dependent on volume fraction of nanoparticle, also highly dependent on other
parameters such as particle shape, size, mixture combinations and slip mechanisms,
surfactant, etc. Studies showed that the thermal conductivity as well as viscosity both
increases by use of nanofluid compared to base fluid. So far, various theoretical and
experimental studies have been conducted and various correlations have been proposed for
thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of nanofluids. However, no general correlations
have been established due to lack of common understanding on mechanism of nanofluid.

2.2 Mechanisms of the thermal conduction enhancement

􀉹A number of mechanisms have been proposed for interpreting the

experimentally observed thermal conduction enhancement including Brownian
motion of nanoparticles, the interfacial ordering of liquid molecules on the
surface of nanoparticles, the ballistic transport of energy carriers within
individual nanoparticles and between nanoparticles that are in contact, as well
as the nanoparticle structuring / networking. There has been much debate on
these mechanisms over the past few years and the focus of debate has been on
the role of Brownian motion

The role of Brownian motion-

The Brownian motion of nanoparticles could contribute to the thermal

conduction enhancement through two ways, a direct contribution due to motion
of nanoparticles that transport heat, and an indirect contribution due to micro-
convection of fluid surrounding individual nanoparticles. Many research have
been done on what extent does Brownian motion affect the heat transfer, but
there are no clear-cut findings on this. Generally, it is said the heat transfer
does not depend much on it.

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Another reason thought for heat transfer enhancement is because of radiation.

The small (nano) particles are able to exchange more energy through radiation,
thus resulting in more hear transfer. High specific surface area results more
heat transfer surface between particles and fluids

Nothing can be said with certainty about the enhancement of heat transfer by
Nano fluids.

3. THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY
A wide range of experimental and theoretical studies were conducted in the literature to
model thermal conductivity of nanofluids. The existing results were generally based on the
definition of the effective thermal conductivity of a two-component mixture. The Maxwell
(1881) model was one the first models proposed for solid–liquid mixture with relatively
large particles. It was based on the solution of heat conduction equation through a
stationary random suspension of spheres. The effective thermal conductivity is given by

keff=kp+2kbf+2φ(kp−kbf)kp+2kbf−φ(kp−kbf)kbfkeff=kp+2kbf+2φ(kp−kbf)kp+2k
bf−φ(kp−kbf)kbf

Where kp is the thermal conductivity of the particles, keff is the effective thermal
conductivity of nanofluid, kbf is the base fluid thermal conductivity, and ϕ is the volume
fraction of the suspended particles.
The general trend in the experimental data is that the thermal conductivity of nanofluids
increases with decreasing particle size. This trend is theoretically supported by two
mechanisms of thermal conductivity enhancement; Brownian motion of nanoparticles and
liquid layering around nanoparticles (Ozerinc et al, 2010). However, there is also a
significant amount of contradictory data in the literature that indicate decreasing thermal
conductivity with decreasing particle [Link] results illustrated neither agreement
about the mechanisms for heat transfer enhancement nor a unified possible explanation
regarding the large discrepancies in the results even for the same base fluid and
nanoparticles size. There are various models available for the measurement of effective
thermal conductivity of nanofluids (Wang and Mujumdar, 2007) but there exists large
deviations among them. Currently, there are no theoretical results available in the literature
that predicts accurately the thermal conductivity of nanofluids.

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4. VISCOSITY
Viscosity is an important flow property of fluids. Pumping power, pressure drop in laminar
flow and convective heat transfer directly depend on the viscosity of fluids. Literally,
analysis of viscosity is quite essential for determining the thermo-fluidic behaviour of heat
transfer fluids. Lots of research has been done in this field and it still needs more
attention. A number of papers have reported about the effects of particle shape, particle
size, volume fraction and temperature on nanofluids’ viscosity. Wide variations exist in
these studies. In addition, the effects of other factors such as surfactants, shear rate,
particle aggregation, dispersion techniques, acidity or pH value have not been reported
properly.

Compared with the experimental studies on thermal conductivity of nanofluids, there are
limited rheological studies reported in the literature for viscosity. Different models of
viscosity have been used by researchers to model the effective viscosity of nanofluid as a
function of volume fraction. Einstein (1956) determined the effective viscosity of a
suspension of spherical solids as a function of volume fraction (volume concentration lower
than 5%) using the phenomenological hydrodynamic equations (Eq.2). This equation was
expressed by

μeff=(1+2.5φ)μbfμeff=(1+2.5φ)μbf

Where µeff is the effective viscosity of nanofluid, µbf is the base fluid viscosity, and ϕ is the
volume fraction of the suspended particles.
Later, Brinkman (1952) presented a viscosity correlation (Eq.3) that extended Einstein’s
equation to suspensions with moderate particle volume fraction, typically less than 4%.

μeff=μbf1(1−ϕ)2.5μeff=μbf1(1−ϕ)2.5 (3)

The effect of Brownian motion on the effective viscosity in a suspension of rigid spherical
particles was studied by Batchelor (1977). For isotropic structure of suspension, the
effective viscosity was given by:

μeff=(1+2.5φ+6.2ϕ2)μbfμeff=(1+2.5φ+6.2ϕ2)μbf

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There are more than 20 such models which co relate viscosity with
some parameters. In fact, no model is able to predict the exact value
of viscosity of nanofluids. A broad range of variations occurs on
comparing the experimental data with the theoretical values. As an
example, Garg et al found four times increment in viscosity compared
to Einstein viscosity law. Murshed et al. [28] also argued that no
classical model could precisely predict the viscosity of nanofluids.

[Link] transfer applications

The increases in effective thermal conductivity are important in improving the heat
transfer behavior of fluids. A number of other variables also play key roles. For example, the
heat transfer coefficient for forced convection in tubes depends on many physical quantities
related to the fluid or the geometry of the system through which the fluid is flowing. These
quantities include intrinsic properties of the fluid such as its thermal conductivity, specific
heat, density, and viscosity, along with extrinsic system parameters such as tube diameter
and length and average fluid velocity. Therefore, it is essential to measure the heat transfer
performance of nanofluids directly under flow conditions. Researchers have shown that
nanofluids have not only better heat conductivity but also greater convective heat transfer
capability than that of base fluids. The following section provides the wide usage and
effective utilization of nanofluids in heat exchangers as heat transfer fluids.

5.1 Convective Heat Transfer of Nanofluids

􀉹Convective heat transfer refers to heat transfer between a fluid and a surface due
to the macroscopic motion of the fluid relative to the surface. The surface can be a solid wall
or an interface with another liquid. We are interested in the solid surface due to its great
industrial significance. Convective heat transfer can be divided into two types, natural
convective heat transfer where fluid motion is induced by buoyancy, and forced convective
heat transfer where fluid is forced to flow through a confined region or
across a confining wall.
Pak and Cho, Xuan and Roetzel and Xuan and Li assumed that convective heat
transfer enhancement is due mainly to dispersion of the suspended nanoparticles. However,
one more experiment of particle dispersion suggests that this effect is very small in

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nanofluids, and thus cannot explain the observed heat transfer enhancement. Xuan and Li
proposed that the enhancement could also come from intensification of turbulence due to
the presence of the nanoparticles. However, pressure drop measurements by Xuan and Li
and Pak and Cho clearly show that turbulent friction factors in their nanofluids can be very
well predicted by the traditional friction factor correlations for pure fluids, if the measured
nanofluid viscosity is used. This suggests that, beyond the obvious viscosity effect,
turbulence is not affected by the presence of the nanoparticles. This conclusion is
corroborated by a comparison of the time and length scales for the nanoparticles and the
turbulent eddies. In his experiments with micro-sized particles _40–100 _m_ suspended in
water and glycerine, Ahuja demonstrated that heat transfer enhancement may occur from
particle rotation. That is, under the effect of the shear stress, the suspended particles rotate
about an axis perpendicular to the main flow direction, creating a three-dimensional
hydrodynamic boundary layer which increases the fluid flow towards the wall.
Several authors have attempted to develop convective transport
models for nanofluids. The models proposed so far are of the following two types:

1_ Homogeneous flow models. The conventional transport equations for pure fluids are
directly extended to the nanofluids. This means that all traditional heat transfer correlations
_e.g., Dittus-Boelter_ could be used also for a nanofluid, provided that the nanofluid
thermophysical properties were used in the calculations. Therefore, heat transfer
enhancement is assumed to come only from the higher thermal conductivity.

2_ Dispersion models. This approach is based on the assumption that the convective heat
transfer enhancement in nanofluids comes from two factors, (i) the higher thermal
conductivity, and (ii) the dispersion of the nanoparticles. In this approach, first proposed for
nanofluids by Xuan and Roetzel, the effect of the nanoparticle/base fluid relative velocity is
treated as a perturbation of the energy equation, and an empirical dispersion coefficient is
introduced to describe the heat transfer enhancement.

5.2 Natural convective heat transfer

􀉹Very few studies have been found in the literature on nanofluids heat transfer under
natural convection conditions. By using the numerical technique, Khanafer et al. 2003)
predicted that nanofluids enhanced natural convective heat transfer. The enhancement was
also observed experimentally by Nnanna et al. (2005) for Cu / ethylene glycol nanofluids and
by Nnanna and Routhu (2005) for alumina / water nanofluids. In contrast, Putra et al. (2003)
found experimentally that the presence of nanoparticles in water systematically decreased
the natural convective heat transfer coefficient. Interestingly, the decrease in the natural
convective coefficient was also reported by Nnanna et al. (2005) for alumina / water
nanofluids, which is in contradiction to the observation of Nnanna and Routhu (2005). Most
research work was therefore aimed to investigate the controversy (Wen & Ding 2005b &
2006) and the details are presented in the following text.

Materials and experimental techniques Aqueous-based TiO2 nanofluids were formulated for
the work by dispersing dry titania nanoparticles in distilled water without the use of any
dispersant/surfactant.

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A high-shear mixer was used to break agglomerates of nanoparticles, and electrostatic

stabilisation was used to stabilise the suspensions. The experimental system used in the
work consisted of two horizontally positioned aluminium discs of diameter 240mm and
thickness 10mm, separated by a 10mm gap through a short insulating PTFE cylinder. A
silicon rubber flexible heater was attached to the lower surface of the bottom disc. Six type J
thermocouples and two surface heat flux sensors were mounted on the aluminium surfaces
to measure temperatures and heat fluxes, which allowed calculation of the natural
convective heat transfer coefficient.

The convective heat transfer coefficient (h) in the form of a Nusselt number(Nu) as a
function of the product of the Grashof number (Gr) and Prandtle number (Pr) defined as
N u = hdg/Kf , Pr = νf /α , Gr = gβΔT d3g/ν2f ,

respectively, with dg representing the separation between the two discs=s, Kf /δt the
thermal conductivity of the fluid, 􀉹f the kinematic viscosity of the fluid, α the thermal
diffusivity of the fluid, β the volume expansion coefficient of the fluid.

One can see clearly that the Nusselt number decreases with increasing nanoparticle
concentration. Possible reasons are discussed in the following text.
Why the observed deterioration? It is known that the natural convective heat
transfer coefficient depends not only on the properties of the fluid and geometry under
consideration, but also on other factors such as method of heating, configuration and
orientation of the heater, as well as the properties of the heating and cooling surfaces.
Given the experimental system and nanofluids used in this work, the Nusselt number
takes the following form (Wen and Ding 2006):
􀉹N u = c [ ρf CP f βΔT νf Kf (1)

where c􀉹 and n are constants, 􀉹f is the fluid density and CPf is heat capacity of the fluid. The
constant n lies between 1/4 and 1/3. Equation (1) indicates that the physical properties of
nanofluids that affect their heat transfer behaviour include heat capacity, thermal
conductivity, density and viscosity. The effects of density and heat capacity are expected to
be small due to small concentrations of nanoparticles. The maximum enhancement of
thermal conductivity and increment of the viscosity are ~5% and 20% under the
conditions of this work, respectively. This brings to a maximum Nusselt number a decrease
of ~8%, which is much smaller than the experimentally observed 30% decrease. Thus, there
must be other factors that play roles. More work is needed in identifying these factors.

5.3 Forced convective heat transfer

There are a limited number of published studies on the forced convective heat transfer.

The two most comprehensive sets of data for single-phase turbulent heat transfer in
nanofluids are those of Pak and Cho and Xuan and Li. These databases are reproduced well
by the following two correlations, respectively:

Nub = 0.021 · Reb0.8 Prb0.5

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Nub = 0.0059 · [1 + 7.6286 ·_b0.6886] Reb Prb*dpD 0.001*Reb0.9238 Prb0.4

It can be seen that the correlations are in good agreement for pure water, while for Dittus-
Boelter and Xuan-Li tend to significantly under- and overestimate the Nusselt number,
respectively.

Most of the reported studies show the enhancement of convective heat transfer by using
nanofluids (Lee and Choi 1996; Xuan and Roetzel 2000; Li and Xuan 2002; Xuan and Li 2003;
Jang and Choi 2006; Heris 2007). A few studies show inconsistencies, i.e. enhancement
under certain conditions but little enhancement under other conditions (Pak and Cho 1998;
Chein and Chuang 2007; Lee and Mudawar 2007).

There are also studies that show little enhancement or even a decrease in the convective
heat transfer coefficient when nanoparticles are added to the base liquids (Yang et al. 2005).
Research now are generally aimed to understand and interpret the controversies through
both experimental work and simple analyses using various nanofluids.

6.1. TUBULAR (CIRCULAR PIPE) HEAT EXCHANGERS

Pak and Cho (1998) investigated experimentally the turbulent friction and heat transfer
behaviours of dispersed fluids (i.e., ultrafine metallic oxide particles suspended in water) in
a circular pipe. Two different metallic oxide particles, γ-alumina (Al2O3) and titanium dioxide
(TiO2) with mean diameters of 13 and 27 nm, respectively, were used as suspended
particles. In their flow loop, the hydrodynamic entry section and the heat transfer section
was made using a seamless, stainless steel tube, of which the inside diameter and the total
length were 1.066 cm and 480 cm, respectively. The hydrodynamic entry section was long
enough (i.e., x /D = 157) to accomplish fully developed flow at the entrance of the heat
transfer test section. They observed that the Nusselt number for the dispersed fluids
increased with increasing volume concentration as well as Reynolds number. But at
constant average velocity, the convective heat transfer coefficient of the dispersed fluid was
12% smaller than that of pure water.
They proposed a new correlation (Eq.7) for the Nusselt number under their experimental
ranges of volume concentration (0-3%), the Reynolds number (104 - 105), and the Prandtl
number (6.54 - 12.33) for the dispersed fluids γ-Al2O3 and TiO2 particles as given below

Nu=0.021Re0.8Pr0.5Nu=0.021Re0.8Pr0.5 (7)

Xuan and Li (2003) built an experimental rig to study the flow and convective heat transfer
feature of the nanofluid flowing in a tube. Their test section was a straight brass tube of the

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inner diameter of 10 mm and the length of 800 mm. Eight thermocouples were mounted at
different places of the heat transfer test section to measure the wall temperatures and
other two thermocouples were respectively located at the entrance and exit of the test
section to read the bulk temperatures of the nanofluid. They investigated convective heat
transfer feature and flow performance of Cu-water nanofluids for the turbulent flow. The
suspended nanoparticles remarkably enhance heat transfer process and the nanofluid has
larger heat transfer coefficient than that of the original base liquid under the same Reynolds
number. They found that at fixed velocities, the heat transfer coefficient of nanofluids
containing 2.0 vol% Cu nanoparticles was improved by as much as 40% compared to that of
water. The Dittus–Boelter correlation failed to predict the improved experimental heat
transfer behavior of nanofluids. The heat transfer feature of a nanofluid increases with the
volume fraction of nanoparticles.
They have proposed the following correlation (Eq.8) to correlate the experimental data for
the nanofluid. The Nusselt number Nu for the turbulent flow of nanofluids inside a tube are
obtained as follows

Nunf=0.0059(1.0+7.6286φ0.6886Pe0.001d)Re0.9238nfPr0.4nfNunf=0.0059(1.0
+7.6286φ0.6886Ped0.001)Renf0.9238Prnf0.4

They found good coincidence between the results calculated from this correlation and the
experimental ones.

Maiga et al., (2005) presented the numerical study of fully developed turbulent flow of
Al2O3 - water nanofluid in circular tube at uniform heat flux of 50 W/cm 2. The classical k-ε
model was used for turbulence modeling and their study clearly showed that the inclusion
of nanoparticles into the base fluids has produced a considerable augmentation of the heat
transfer coefficient that clearly increases with an increase of the particle concentration.
However, the presence of such particles has also induced drastic effects on the wall shear
stress that increases appreciably with the particle loading. Among the mixtures studied, the
ethylene glycol γ-Al2O3nanofluid appears to offer a better heat transfer enhancement than
water– γ-Al2O3.

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6.2. DOUBLE PIPE HEAT EXCHANGER

Chun et al., (2008) experimentally reported the convective heat transfer of nanofluids made
of transformer oil and three kinds of alumina nanoparticles in laminar flow through a double
pipe heat exchanger system. The experimental system consisted of two double-pipe heat
exchangers for heating and cooling of nanofluid and was made of a non-corrosive stainless
steel. Their experimental data showed that the addition of nanoparticles in the fluid
increases the average heat transfer coefficient of the system in laminar flow. By non-linear
regression of experimental data, the correlation for heat transfer coefficient was decided as
follows

hi=kD×1.7Re0.4hi=kD×1.7Re0.4

The surface properties of nanoparticles, particle loading, and particle shape were key
factors for enhancing the heat transfer properties of nanofluids. They stated that these
increases of heat transfer coefficients may be caused by the high concentration of
nanoparticles in the wall side by the particle migration.

6.3. PLATE HEAT EXCHANGER

Zamzamian et al., (2011) used nanofluids of aluminium oxide and copper oxide in ethylene
glycol base fluid. They investigated the effect of forced convective heat transfer coefficient
in turbulent flow, using a double pipe and plate heat exchangers. The inner pipe of the
double pipe heat exchanger was made of copper, 12 mm in diameter and 1 mm in thickness,
with a heat exchange length of 70 cm. The shell was made of green pipes, 50.8 mm in
diameter. The flow inside the double pipe heat exchanger was arranged in opposite
directions. The plate heat exchanger was a small, particularly manufactured model of
common home radiators, 40 cm in height and 60 cm in length, exchanging heat freely with
the ambience through four fins. The forced convective heat transfer coefficient of the
nanofluids using theoretical correlations also calculated in order to compare the results with
the experimental data. The effects of particle concentration and operating temperature on
the forced convective heat transfer coefficient of the nanofluids were evaluated. The
findings indicated considerable enhancement in convective heat transfer coefficient of the
nanofluids as compared to the base fluid, ranging from 2% to 50%. Moreover, the results
indicated that with increasing nanoparticles concentration and nanofluid temperature, the
convective heat transfer coefficient of nanofluid increases.

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[Link] OF NANOFLUIDS

Spectacular capability of Nanofluids in heat transfer/removal enhancement can properly address

the energy demand and emission issues of the present world. In United State only, utilization of

Nanofluids for industrial cooling could result in great energy savings and resulting emissions

reductions. For U.S. industry, the replacement of cooling and heating water with Nanofluids has the

potential to conserve 1 trillion Btu of energy. For the U.S. electric power industry, using Nanofluids

in closed-loop cooling cycles could save about 10– 30 trillion Btu per year (equivalent to the annual

energy consumption of about 50,000–150,000 households). The associated emissions reductions

would be approximately 5.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide; 8,600 metric tons of nitrogen oxides;

and 21,000 metric tons of sulphur dioxide.

In more localized end points, faster and more robust data servers and computers, electronic

devices, sensors and actuators can appreciably boost the businesses, reduce the instances of

circuit burns and electricity cut-offs and hence save a significant amount of money to end users

and service providers. Consequently, a potential of 2-billion dollar-per year investment is estimated

to flow into this great technology. All this shows a surprising advantage of %60 more efficiency in

server cooling which is expected to bring about a significant boost of efficiency for the service provider.

8. PROBLEMS AND DRAWBACKS

a. Knowledge in atomic levels

According to Eastman et al.[12] 2004, although the potential for the use of Nanofluids in a wide

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range of applications is promising, a seriously hindering fact in development of the fields and

applications is that a detailed atomic-level understanding of the mechanism(s) responsible for the

observed property changes remains elusive. In the absence of this treasury of knowledge people rely

on few simplistic models and in some cases large discrepancies between prediction and

measurement remains a secret. As an instance, different scenarios have been proposed by [6] et

al 2004 to explain the true reason for remarkably lower measured conductivity of Nanotubes in water.

b. Toxicity and disposal problems

Nanoparticles like silicon are extremely health threatening and presence of these particles in aquatic

environment will severely endanger life of humans and animals through digestion and inhalation of

these contaminants. Therefor some issues regarding the use of Nanofluids in a power plant system

include the unpredictability of the amount of nanoparticles that

are carried away by the boiling vapor. One other concern is what extra safety measures that have

to be taken in the disposal of the Nanofluid. Hence extra caution must be taken in regards to

the concentration and disposal of the material which calls for development of standards and

procedural instructive and training sessions.

c. Erosion and abrasion

In the light of advantages of Nanoparticles over micros particles, still abrasion and erosion

problems issues exist with these extremely fine particles. In particular, consideration of possible

chemical reactions and oxidation with materials of the media (walls and the fluid base) must be

carefully accounted for. As a practical measure, Wong and Leon 2009[13] refer to the fact that

application of Nanofluid coolant to boiling water reactors (BWR) is predicted to be minimal because

nanoparticle carryover to the turbine and condenser would raise erosion and fouling concerns.

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 HEAT TRANSFER ENHANCEMENT USING NANO FLUIDS

d. Cost inhibition

Use of diamond, gold, silver, and has been studied in study of researchers like Patel and

coworkers 2003[14], Eastman 2004, Ma et al. 2006. Associate cost of integration of gold in water

as a Nanofluid with volume fraction loading of 0.011%vol for a system containing 200 milliliter of the

fluid will be $40351. As another instance, the price of 200 milliliter of a 1% volumetrically loaded

water-carbon nanotube fluid will be $65002[15]. In the view of the author of this paper, insurability

about cost effectiveness besides technical aspects explained above will confine the development of

systems to laboratory scale experiments and prototypes still for a considerable time.

9. Conclusion
Nanofluid cooling has variety of application in power generation, industrial, information
technology, and business sections. It is important to note that preparation of nanofluids is
an important step in experiments on nanofluids. Having successfully engineering the
nanofluids, the estimation of thermos physical properties of nanofluids captures the
attention. Research works on convective heat transfer using nanofluids is found to increase
exponentially in the last decade. Almost all the works showed that the inclusion of
nanoparticles into the base fluids has produced a considerable augmentation of the heat
transfer coefficient that clearly increases with an increase of the particle concentration. It
was reported by many of the researchers that the increase in the effective thermal
conductivity and huge chaotic movement of nanoparticles with increasing particle
concentration is mainly responsible for heat transfer enhancement. However, there exists
aplenty of controversy and inconsistency among the reported results. The outcome of all
heat transfer works using nanofluids showed that our current understanding on nanofluids
is still quite limited. There are a number of challenges facing the nanofluids community
ranging from formulation, practical application to mechanism understanding. Engineering
suitable nanofluids with controlled particle size and morphology for heat transfer
applications is still a big challenge. Besides thermal conductivity effect, future research
should consider other properties, especially viscosity and wettability, and examine
systematically their influence on flow and heat transfer. An in-depth understanding of the

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interactions between particles, stabilizers, the suspending liquid and the heating surface will
be important for applications.

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