Experimental study on enhancement of free convective heat transfer in a tilted hemispherical enclosure by using Water-ZnO nanofluid saturated porous materials

Porous materials saturated with Water-ZnO nanofluid are used for convective heat transfer enhancement purposes in a tilted hemispherical enclosure which cupola is maintained isothermally while its disc is an active electronic assembly generating high heat flux. An experimental installation has been designed to measure average Nusselt number for many combinations obtained by varying different physical parameters such as nanofluid volume fraction, power generated by the disc, thermal conductivity of porous medium and disc's inclination relative to the gravity field. Results clearly confirm that the nanofluid saturated porous medium enhances natural convective heat transfer for given combinations of the four influencing parameters. Small deviations observed between measurements and numerical results obtained in a recent numerical study validate the implemented mathematical model. Both numerical and experimental results allow optimization of the assembly's thermal sizing.