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Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of a plate heat exchanger using water based Al2O3 nanofluid for 30° and 60° chevron angles

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Abstract

Nanofluid is a new class of engineering fluid that has good heat transfer characteristics which is essential to increase the heat transfer performance in various engineering applications such as heat exchangers and cooling of electronics. In this study, experiments were conducted to compare the heat transfer performance and pressure drop characteristics in a plate heat exchanger (PHE) for 30° and 60° chevron angles using water based Al2O3 nanofluid at the concentrations from 0 to 0.5 vol.% for different Reynolds numbers. The thermo-physical properties has been determined and presented in this paper. At 0.5 vol% concentration, the maximum heat transfer coefficient, the overall heat transfer coefficient and the heat transfer rate for 60° chevron angle have attained a higher percentage of 15.14%, 7.8% and 15.4%, respectively in comparison with the base fluid. Consequently, when the volume concentration or Reynolds number increases, the heat transfer coefficient and the overall heat transfer coefficient as well as the heat transfer rate of the PHE (Plate Heat Exchangers) increases respectively. Similarly, the pressure drop increases with the volume concentration. 60° chevron angle showed better performance in comparison with 30° chevron angle.

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Abbreviations

C :

Heat capacity rate kJ/K.s.

c p :

Specific heat, kJ/kg.K.

D :

Diameter of the port, m.

G :

Mass velocity, kg/s.

h :

Heat transfer coefficient, W/m2K.

k :

Plate thermal conductivity, W/m K.

L :

Port to port length, m.

\( \dot{m} \) :

Mass flow rate, kg/s.

N :

Number of channel.

NTU :

Number of heat transfer units.

Q :

Heat transfer rate.

q :

Actual heat transfer rate.

T :

Temperature, K.

t :

Thickness of the plate, m.

U :

Overall heat transfer coefficient, W/m2 K.

w:

Effective width of plate, m.

ΔP :

Pressure drop, Pa.

ε :

Heat exchanger effectiveness.

ρ :

Density, kg/m3.

Ø :

Volume fraction.

b :

Base fluid.

c :

Cold.

eff :

Effective.

h :

Hot.

nf :

Nanofluid.

o :

Outlet.

p :

Nanoparticle.

Nu :

Nusselt number.

Pr :

Prandtl number.

Re :

Reynolds number.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the “Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia” (MoHE) for the financial support under UM MoHE High Impact Research Grant (HIRG) scheme (Project no: UM.C/HIR/MoHE/ENG/40) to carry out this research. The support of KFUPM to finalize the paper is also acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    M. M. Elias

  2. Research Centre for Nanomaterials and Energy Technology (RCNMET), School of Science and Technology, Sunway University, No. 5, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Sunway, 47500, Petaling Jaya, Malaysia

    R. Saidur & K. Jesbains

  3. Department of Engineering, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YW, UK

    R. Saidur

  4. Center of Research Excellence in Renewable Energy (CoRE-RE), Research Institute, King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUPM), Dhahran, 31261, Saudi Arabia

    R. Ben-Mansour

  5. Department of Energy Systems Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Yaşar University, 35100, Izmir, Turkey

    A. Hepbasli

  6. UM Power Energy Dedicated Advanced Centre (UMPEDAC), Wisma R & D, University of Malaya, 50603, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    N. A. Rahim

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  1. M. M. Elias
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  2. R. Saidur
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Correspondence to K. Jesbains.

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Elias, M.M., Saidur, R., Ben-Mansour, R. et al. Heat transfer and pressure drop characteristics of a plate heat exchanger using water based Al2O3 nanofluid for 30° and 60° chevron angles. Heat Mass Transfer 54, 2907–2916 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00231-018-2335-1

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