Fluid Flow and Convective Heat Transfer Characteristics of Al2O3 Nanofluids

In this paper, convective heat transfer and flow characteristics of Al2O3 nanoparticles suspended in water flowing through uniformly heated tubes are experimentally investigated under laminar flow regime. The heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop of nanoparticles suspended in water are experimentally presented according to the pumping power. In addition, the heat transfer coefficient and the pressure drop of Al2O3 nanoparticles suspended in water are compared with those of pure water under the fixed pumping power. It is shown that the heat transfer coefficient of Al2O3 nanofluids with 0.1 % volume fraction is enhanced by about 12% although the increment of the pressure drop of those is 4% compared with those of pure water.