NUMERICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL STUDY THE EFFECT OF (SiO₂) NANOPARTICLES ON THE PERFORMANCE OF DOUBLE PIPE HEAT EXCHANGER

Abstract

Numerical and experimental investigation of the heat transfer and the friction factor characteristics in a counter flow double pipe heat exchanger with and without Nano fluid was studied. Tests are performed for fully developed turbulent flow ranges, homogeneous Nano fluid. The double pipe heat exchanger consists of two tubes, the first inner plain tube has been manufactured from copper materials with inner and outer diameters of (11.2 and 12.7) mm respectively, the length of the first inner plain tube is 1057 mm. The second insulated an external tube which has been manufactured from PVC material with inner and outer diameters of (44.4 and 50)mm respectively, with a length is 1032mm. The flows have been tested at Reynolds number ranging (3019.43-4824.22). Nano particle size ranging (15-20)nm. The results show that the heat transfer rate increases as Reynolds number and volume concentration of Nano fluid increase. The increasing percentage of Nusselt number, friction factor and the performance factor of (15.72,11.51 and 11.57) % respectively for maximum volume concentration and volume flow rate of 3% and 1.6 lpm respectively. ANSYS FLUENT 2015 package was used to simulate the heat transfer and the fluid flow in the heat exchanger. The results show that the heat transfer increases when Nano fluid was added. The agreement was observed with experimental work with a maximum discrepancy of 12%.