Comparison of Homogenous and Buongiorno’ Model with Eulerian-Lagrangian Model for Nanofluids Heat Transfer in a Microchannel

In this paper, nanofluid heat transfer in a microchannel has been studied using homogenous and Buongiorno’s models, and compared with Eulerian-Lagrangian model. The base fluid is water and the particles are Al2O3 and Cu with a diameter of 100nm. The volume fraction is up to 2% and Reynolds number is in the range of 250-1000. The governing equations including continuity, momentum and energy, have been solved using a control volume method (SIMPLE). The results show that for Water-Al2O3, the maximum difference between the homogeneous model and the Eulerian-Lagrangian model is 7.5%, and for Buongiorno’s model is 3%. It can be concluded that the Buongiorno’s model has an acceptable accuracy in results, and is simple enough to be used. On the other hand, unlike the Eulerian-Lagrangian, Buongiorno’s model doesn’t need the parallel processing and super computers, and is a good model to predict heat transfer of nanofluids.