The effect of volume fraction and size of Al2O3 nanoparticle on heat transfer and flow characteristics in the heat exchanger with louvered strip inserts

In this study, the effect of using louvered strip inserts in heat exchangers on flow and transfer characteristics is numerically investigated. The continuity, momentum, and energy equations have been solved using a finite volume method. The wall of the tube is heated with a uniform heat flux boundary condition. This paper uses a louvered strip insert arrangement (forward) with a Reynolds number of 10,000. The effects of louvered strip slant angle of  and pitch of 50 mm were used for Al2O3 nanoparticles with different volume fractions in the range of 1% to 4% and different nanoparticle diameters in the range of 20 nm to 50 nm, mixed in a base fluid (water) is used. The comparison of numerical analysis results with existing equations has shown a good convergence. The numerical results reveal that the Nusselt number has increased with decreasing the nanoparticle diameter. The results indicate a slight change in the skin friction coefficient when nanoparticle diameters of Al2O3 nanofluid are varied. The Nusselt number increases with increasing nanoparticle volume fraction of Al2O3 /water nanofluid, while it is found that pure water has the lowest Nusselt number value. Also, the nanofluid has reduced the wall's temperature more than the base fluids (water), which indicates the advantage of using nanofluids in improving the system's thermal performance.