Numerical investigation of forced convection of nano fluid flow in horizontal U-longitudinal finned tube heat exchanger

A numerical study has been carried out to investigate the heat transfer by laminar forced convection of nanofluid taking Titania (TiO2) and Alumina (Al2O3) as nanoparticles and the water as based fluid in a three dimensional plain and U-longitudinal finned tube heat exchanger. A Solid WORKS PREMIUM 2012 is used to draw the geometries of plain tube heat exchanger or U-longitudinal copper finned tube heat exchanger. Four U-longitudinal copper fins have 100 cm long, 3.8cm height and 1 mm thickness are attached to a straight copper tube of 100 cm length, 2.2 cm inner diameter and 2.39 cm outer diameter. The governing equations which used as continuity, momentum and energy equations under assumptions are utilized to predict the flow field, temperature distribution, and heat transfer of the heat exchanger. The finite volume approach is used to obtain all the computational results using commercial ANSYS Fluent copy package 14.0 with assist of solid works and Gambit software program. The effect of various parameters on the performance of heat exchanger are investigated numerically such as Reynolds' number (ranging from 270 to 1900), volume consternation of nanoparticles (0.2%, 0.4%, 0.6%, 0.8%), type of nanoparticles, and mass flow rate of nanofluid in the hot region of heat exchanger. For 0.8% consternation of nanoparticles, heat transfer has significant enhancement in both nanofluids. It can be found about7.3 % for TiO2 and about7.5 % for Al2O3 compared with the water only as a working fluid.