Abstract:

Utilizing nanofluid in heat exchanger is extensively interested in petrochemical and power plant industries due to the durability provided to the exchanger long-life operation.   In the present research, an experimental investigation is carried out to study the influence of copper and aluminum oxide nanofluids on the performance of shell and tube type heat exchanger. Comparsion with theoretical outcome is also conducted.  Implementation of the experiments was performed using counter-flow double-pipe heat exchanger. The heat exchanger consists of 21 tubes through which the hot fluid flows. The 7 thermocouples are positioned along the hot and cold circuits so as to facilitate the measurement of temperatures at the inlet, exit and intermediate points of the exchanger. pure water is heated by means of an electric heating element to a specified temperature and is then pumped into the tubes of the heat exchanger unit. The second fluid (the nanofluid), stored in the cold fluid tank, is pumped into the heat exchanger unit by means of another impeller pump. The nanofluid flows in the annular space around the tubes. Although parallel and counter flow configurations can easily be established by making use of the four ball valves placed along the cold circuit, only counter flow configuration was setup for operation in the present study. Various volume fractions ranging from 0.26% - 0.83% were tested to assess the morphology of nanoparticle and volume fraction on the exchanger efficiency. It was observed that the volume fraction of nanofluid has a direct relationship to the heat exchanger effectiveness. As the volume fraction was increased, the effectiveness was found to increase by 7% and 10% for Al~2~O~3~ and Cu nanofluids, respectively.  Further, the effect of mass flow rate of cold-side nanofluid was investigated. The Reynolds number for the cold nanofluid was varied in the range 7000 - 15000. It was observed that the mass flow rate of cold nanofluid has a direct relationship with the Nusselt number. A significant enhancement in Nusselt number by 13% and 23% was observed for Al~2~O~3~ and Cu nanofluids, respectively. The effect of varying inlet temperature of hot fluid was also investigated.  Results indicate an enhancement in performance for higher inlet temperatures of hot fluid. Moreover, the heat leak from the shell side to the ambience was estimated for each case. Al~2~O~3~ nanofluid was observed to have greater heat leak in comparison to Cu nanofluid.


Evaluating the Influence of Nanofluid Type and Volume Fraction on the Performance of Heat Exchanger

Division / Sponsors: 
Aerospace, Bioengineering, Applied Mechanics, Design Engineering Division, Advanced Energy Systems, Manufacturing Engineering Division, Noise Control and Acoustics, Nondestructive Evaluation, Diagnosis, and Prognosis (NDPD), Nuclear Engineering Division, Process Industries Division, Fluids Engineering, Heat Transfer, Materials, Microelectromechanical Systems, Safety Engineering and Risk Analysis, Computers & Information in Engineering


Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/IMECE/IMECE2020/volume/84478

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