Comparative study of convective heat transfer characteristics of nanofluids

The present research is about to draw a comparison between heat transfer characteristics of gold/deionized water (DIW) and silver/DIW based nanofluid under same heat flux for laminar flow. Experiments are performed on both nanofluid by using different concentrations (0.015, 0.045, 0.0667%) of nano-particles (NPs) in DIW as a base fluid. The experimental study concludes that an appreciable intensification in heat transfer coefficient (HTC) of both nanofluid has been attained as compare to base fluid. However, gold/DIW based nanofluid exhibit better convective heat transfer intensification compared with silver/DIW based nanofluid but Shah correlation cannot predict as much augmentation as in experimental work for both nanofluid. It is also noticed that the anomalous enhancement in Nusselt number and HTC is not only due to the accession in thermal properties but also by the formation of thinner thermal boundary layer at the entrance of the tube due to NPs.