An investigation to evaluate the influence of Al2O3 nanoparticles on thermal performance of oscillating heat pipe using Box-Behnken design method

Heat pipes with conventional fluids have been effectively used in the last 3 decades for thermal management of a variety of engineering applications such as economizers, heat exchangers and electronics cooling. However, rapid growth of industrial automation and electric vehicle (EV), thermal management in electronics and battery system faces lot of challenges for cooling the devices due to more heat demand from condensed and compact electronic devices. The present investigation aims to analyze the effect of different wt% of Al2O3 nanofluids, fill ratio and heat input on thermal performance of Oscillating Heat Pipe (OHP) system were investigated using Response Surface methodology (RSM). The responses like Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC) and thermal resistance were analyzed using ANOVA analysis, main effects plots and surface plots. Also, the experimental results were correlated with regression models. The obtained results indicated that the highest influence factors are heat input and fill ratio, while least is wt% of Al2O3 nanofluids. The lower thermal resistance of 1.1447 degrees C/W and higher heat transfer coefficient of 283.18 W/m(2) degrees C were obtained at fill ratio of 80% and heat input of 35W and 2% of Al2O3 nanoparticles. The predicted results represent the RSM model has realistic level of accuracy in its capability to define the thermal performance of the OHP system.