Some study on heat transfer and pressure drop characteratics of cuo-distilled water based nanofluids

Abstract

In this thesis work, the heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of the distilled water and the copper oxide-distilled water based nanofluid flowing in a horizontal circular pipe under constant heat flux condition are studied. Copper oxide nanoparticles of 40nm size are dispersed in distilled water using sodium dodecyl sulphate as surfactant and sonicated the nanofluid for three hour. Both surfactant and sonication increases the stability of the nanofluid. The nanofluids are made in three different concentration i.e. 0.1 Vol. %, 0.25 Vol. % and 0.50 Vol. %. The thermal conductivity is measured by KD2 PRO, density with pycnometer, viscosity with Brookfield LVDV-III rheometer. The results show that the thermal conductivity increases with both temperature and concentration. The viscosity and density increases with concentration but decreases with temperature. The specific heat was calculated by model and it decreases with concentration. The experimental local Nusselt number of distilled water is compared with local Nusselt number obtained by the well known shah equation for laminar flow under constant heat flux condition for validation of the experimental set up. The relative error is 4.48 % for the Reynolds number 750.9. The heat transfer coefficient increases with increase in both flow rate and concentration. It increases from 14.33 % to 46.1 % when the concentration is increased from 0.1 Vol. % to 0.5 Vol. % at 20 LPH flow rate. Friction factor decreases with increase in flow rate. It decreases 66.54 % when the flow rate increases from 10 LPH to 30 LPH for 0.1 Vol. %.