Measurement of Local Convective Heat Transfer Coefficient of Alumina-Water Nanofluids in a Double Tube Heat Exchanger

Heat transfer coefficient and thermal efficiency of γ-Al2O3/water nanofluids flowing through a double tube heat exchanger were experimentally investigated. The nanoparticles were well dispersed in distilled water at 0.05–0.15 %vol. A large number of experiments were performed at different fluid flow rates under turbulent flow regime (18,000<Re<40,000) and various nanofluid inlet temperatures ranging from 45 °C to 65 °C. The heat transfer coefficients were measured along the length of the heat exchanger. Results showed that the local heat transfer coefficients have an asymptotic behavior. Furthermore, the addition of these small amounts of nanoparticles to the base fluid augmented the heat transfer up to 16% at the best conditions. In the end, the thermal performance factor was calculated to find the optimum condition at which the nanofluid was used. It was shown that the thermal performance factor of this nanofluid could reach to 1.11. This value was obtained at the nanoparticle concentration of 0.15 vol.% and Reynolds number 18000