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Procedia Engineering 170 (2017) 541 – 546

Engineering Physics International Conference (EPIC) 2016

Comparative Study of Heat Transfer and Friction Factor Characteristics of

Nanofluids in Rectangular Channel
U. K. Ahmada*, M. Hasreena, N. A. Yahaya, B. Rosnadiah
a
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA, 40450 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

Abstract

This paper reports numerical study of heat transfer and friction factor of laminar flow nanofluids characteristics in a rectangular channel. The
effectiveness of metal oxide nanoparticles (Al2O3), metal nanoparticles (Cu) and semiconductor nanoparticles (SiO2) in enhancing heat transfer
rate were studied by varying volume fractions in the range of 0.5% to 2.5 % with constant nanoparticle diameter of 25 nm. Numerical method
was used to solve the three-dimensional laminar flow and heat transfer governing equation. The computations were performed under constant
heat flux (18,000 W/cm²) over range of Reynolds number (Re) 100 –1,000 laminar flow. The performances of nanofluids were evaluated in
terms of velocity profile, heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop, and friction factor. The numerical results show that the heat transfer
coefficients, thermal conductivity, pressure drop and mean velocity for all nanofluids increased with increasing Reynolds number as well as
particle volume concentration, while the friction factor decreased.
© 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsvier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the Engineering Physics International Conference 2016
Keywords: Nanofluids; heat transfer; friction factor; rectangular channel; laminar flow

1. Introduction

Researchers are attracted in nanofluid capability of transmitting heat extra than the conventional fluids which valuable in
many applications including microchannels, refrigeration, air conditioning even in automotive systems. Xuan and Li [1]
experimental studies of heat transfer properties of nanofluids emphasized that adding up nanoparticles to base fluid increases the
convective heat transfer coefficient. The heat transfer fluid plays as a critical role in heat transfer performance of heat exchange
system.
Conventional heat transfer fluids such as water, ethylene glycol and oil usually have relatively poor thermal conductivity in
evaluation with metal or metal oxide [2]. To enhance the heat transfer rate, the addition of solid particles into conventional heat
transfer fluids has been well known in many years ago as one of the useful techniques [3]. Nevertheless, the fouling and wear
problems of the solid–liquid suspension consisting micrometer or millimeter sized particles limit their application. To get to the
bottom of these problems, a new class of heat transfer fluids named nanofluids is developed by dispersing nanoparticles in
traditional heat transfer fluids [4].
The purpose of this project is to compare the effectiveness between metal oxide nanoparticles, metal nanoparticles and
semiconductor nanoparticles in order to enhance the heat transfer rate and investigate the friction factor. There were no
experimental set up for this project. The analysis focused on the effect of velocity, heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop,
temperature and friction factor when range of volume fraction were varied from 0.5 % to 2.5 %.The nanoparticles used are
alumina (



), silicon dioxide (Si

), and copper (Cu) with constant nanoparticles diameter (25nm).
____________________________
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +6-035-543-5278; fax: +6-035-543-5160.
E-mail address:umikalsom@salam.uitm.edu.my

1877-7058 © 2017 Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of the Engineering Physics International Conference 2016
doi:10.1016/j.proeng.2017.03.086
542 U.K. Ahmad et al. / Procedia Engineering 170 (2017) 541 – 546

2. Methodology

Vital consideration have been made to search the effective way in applying new cooling technologies to meet the
requirement of dissipation rate and retain the low temperature region of electronic devices[6]. The performance of Cu/H2O and
SiO2/H2O nanofluids has been scrutinized by using mathematical formulation to compare the cooling performance. The 1.0 m
long channel with a rectangular cross section area of 4.5


heat sink operation is analyzed with the nanofluids serve as a
working fluid. Thermophysical properties of the water and nanoparticles (Al2O3, Cu and SiO2) at 30oC, are shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Thermophysical properties of based fluid and nanoparticles.

Property Water Al2O3 SiO2 Cu

Density,
(kg/

) 998.2 3970 2200 8933
Specific heat,

(J/kg
K) 4182 765 703 385
Thermal conductivity, k (W/m
K) 0.6 40 1.2 401
Dynamic viscosity,
(kg/ms) 0.000598 - - -

2.1. Mathematical modeling

This study is greatly connected with heat transfer in closed system process. There are many equations with assumptions to
apply in the investigation. The assumptions occur for the reason that of the design of channel has been produced. Laminar flow
of



/


, 

/


and Cu/


nanofluid in a rectangular channel was studied numerically. The model presented was
assumed to be fully developed, steady-state, laminar flow, homogeneous mixture, constant heat flux, neglecting x and y
direction convective terms, and negligible radiation heat transfer.

Fig. 1. Geometry of rectangular channel.

The subsequent non-linear governing equations stand for the mathematical formulation of the single phase model, which is
contain conservation of mass, momentum, as well as energy meant for the nanofluids flow inside the rectangular channel.

Conservation of mass: div (


) = 0, (1)

Conservation of momentum: div (



) =

P +




, (2)

Conservation of energy: div(





) = div (



), (3)

Where P,
and T are corresponding to the fluid pressure, velocity vector and temperature;




C and k are the dynamic
viscosity, density, specific heat capacity and thermal conductivity respectively; subscript nf represent a nanofluid property.
Every part of fluid properties is considered on the reference temperature.

 U.K. Ahmad et al. / Procedia Engineering 170 (2017) 541 – 546 543

2.2. Thermophysical properties of nanofluids

The thermophysical properties of nanofluids as shown in Table 1 were calculated by using governing equation and by these
following equations. The physical properties of the nanofluids, including density, specific heat capacity, thermal conductivity,
and viscosity, were defined as follows;

Density of nanofluids, ρnf, as described by Pak and Cho [9]); that is, ρnf= φρp + (1- φ) ρb (4)

In order to determine the specific heat capacity of nanofluids,

, it was assumed that the Alumina


(



),


 

, Copper (Cu) nanoparticles and the water (base fluid) are in thermal equilibrium. Hence, specific
heat capacity of nanofluid can be predicted as by Xuan and Roetzel [10]:

= (5)




Thermal conductivity of nanofluids,

were calculated from the following equation (Heyhat et al. [11]);

φ


=

(6)


















φ

Viscosity of nanofluids, µ
were calculated from Heyhat et al.’s empirical equation [11]; namely,

µ
=µ
(1+2.5 φ) (7)

Hydraulic diameter of rectangular channel

was calculated and defined as:




= (8)

The Nusselt number, the Reynolds number and the friction factor are dimensionless parameters and calculated, respectively, as
follows:





Nu = = 3.39 (9)







= 3.39 (10)






Re

(11)
µ









Or

=
(12)








Pressure drop of nanofluids,


for laminar flow as follow;





















































































































(13)

3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Effect of types of nanoparticles

In this study, three different types of nanoparticles




, Cu, and Si

have been used with pure water as the based fluid. The
nanoparticle concentration used in this case was in range of 0.5%-2.5% and the nanoparticle diameter was 25 nm. The values of
density, thermal conductivity and specific heat capacity were showed in Table 1.
544 U.K. Ahmad et al. / Procedia Engineering 170 (2017) 541 – 546

Figure 2 shows for the different range of Reynolds number for 2.5% volume fraction. It shows that nanofluid with Si

has
the greatest mean velocity (m/s), followed by




, and Cu respectively. This phenomenon can be attributed to the fact of the
lower density properties of Si

/Water compared with the higher density properties of other nanofluids.

Fig. 2. Mean Velocity vs Reynolds number for 2.5% vol. fraction

3.2. Effect of volume fraction of nanoparticles

The volume fractions of nanoparticles are actually referred to the volume of nanoparticles constituent divided by the volume
of the all constituents of the mixture prior to mixing. The addition of nanoparticle to base fluid will enhance the heat transfer
rate. In general, these enhancements are due to the high thermal conductivity of the mixture, which is due to the larger surface
area of nanoparticles for molecular collisions. The effects of volume fraction of nanoparticles to the thermal conductivity were
shown in figure 3.

It is clearly shown that increasing nanoparticles volume fraction enhances the thermal conductivity. By increasing the volume
fraction of nanoparticle the thermal conductivity of the fluid increases which enhanced the heat transfer. Volume fraction of
2.5% has the best heat transfer rate followed by 2.0%, 1.5%, 1.0%, and 0.5% respectively.

Fig. 3. Thermal conductivity vs vol. fraction

3.3. Velocity profile

Table 2 shows the velocity profile across rectangular channel at three different sections (0 m, 0.5 m and 1.0 m) for three types
of nanofluids. Investigation has shown that the flow at inlet (0 m) has not fully developed due to viscosity and surface tension.
The pattern of velocity profile for



/Water, Cu/Water and Si

/Water were about the same. However, for middle (0.5 m)
and outlet (1.0 m) the fully developed flow has occurred. As shown in that table 2 (



/Water, Cu/Water and Si

/Water), the
maximum axial velocities are at the exit of the test section for the three types of nanofluid. Si

/Water nanofluids has the
highest velocity with 0.0385 m/s compared to the



/Water and Cu/Water nanofluids. Si

/Water has higher velocity
because it has the lowest density and thermal conductivity.
 U.K. Ahmad et al. / Procedia Engineering 170 (2017) 541 – 546 545

Table 2. Velocity for inlet (0 m), middle (0.5 m) and Outlet (1.0 m)

Types of Velocity (m/s) Velocity (m/s) Velocity (m/s)

nanofluid Inlet (0 m) Middle (0.5 m) Outlet (1.0 m)




/Water 0.0295 0.036 0.037
Cu/Water 0.0265 0.032 0.033
Si

/Water 0.031 0.037 0.0385

3.4. Friction factor and pressure drop

The effect of heat flux and Reynolds number on the pressure drop and friction factor along rectangular channel is displayed as
shown in figure 4 and figure 5 respectively. It can be seen that the pressure drop is increasing while friction factor decreasing
with Reynolds number increase as fluid velocity increased. The highest friction factor occurred at Re = 100 and the lowest at Re
= 1000 for three types of nanofluids. The highest friction factor is at (Cu/Water) nanofluid with 0.646 followed by



/Water
(0.576) and Si

/Water (0.548).
Figure 5 shows that pressure drop increased with higher Reynolds number. As expected, the highest pressure drop was
Si

/Water (1.57 Pa) and followed by



/Water (1.50 Pa) and Cu/Water (1.35 Pa) respectively. The percentage increase in
pressure drop associated with using nanofluids compared with pure water is 8.61% for Si

/Water, 6.31% for



/Water and
4.72% for Cu/Water at volume fraction 2.5%.
As an overall result, Si

/Water nanofluid has more advantages if compared with



/Water and Cu/Water. Si

/Water
nanofluid has higher velocity and pressure drop because it has lower thermal conductivity and density among them. Moreover,
Si

/Water has lower friction factor which reduce force resisting of relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material
elements sliding against each other.

Fig. 4. Friction factor vs Reynolds number.

Fig. 5. Pressure drop vs Reynolds number.

546 U.K. Ahmad et al. / Procedia Engineering 170 (2017) 541 – 546

4. Conclusion

In this paper a numerical investigation is made to study the effect of using nanofluids as cooling medium on the performance
of rectangular channel. The numerical study for nanofluids flow in rectangular channel shown that the addition of nanoparticles
to water leads to significantly increasing in the heat transfer coefficient, pressure drop and velocity performance in this case.
Also the enhancement in heat transfer will increase with increasing in thermal conductivity of nanoparticles. From the results it
can be concluded that:

• Using of nanofluids lead to increase the effectiveness and cooling performance of a rectangular channel.
• There has extra increase in heat transfer coefficient if nanoparticles have the higher density and thermal conductivity.
• The effect of nanofluids is larger for low velocities while in flow with high velocities this effect is small because the
flow will be dominated by the flow rate.
• The lower density will improve the velocity performance.
• The enhancement in thermal performance of rectangular channel increases with using material with high thermal
conductivity.

Overall of this study, several recommendations could carry out by other researchers. The heat transfer using nanofluids is
being developed but the effectiveness slightly same with pure water. So, suggested that the volume fraction in nanofluids should
be increase in large volume of base fluid. However, it has limitation on using nanoparticles in fluid. Furthermore, suggested that
try to use other base fluid instead of water. The base fluid remains as important subject because it was transportation for
nanoparticles. The base fluid clearly must not chemically react with nanoparticles because it will affect the system

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