Effect of thermal radiation and volume fraction on carbon nanotubes based nanofluid flow inside a square chamber

Heat transfer and flow characteristics of Tiwari - Das model nanofluid inside a differentially heated square enclosure pondered with single walled carbon nanotubes and water by taking thermal radiation is examined in this paper. Vertical walls of the cavity are isothermal, such as, left wall is heated and right wall is cooled. The modeled momentum and energy equations are numerically solved by utilizing finite difference scheme. Streamlines and Isotherms with different values of pertinent variables, such as, volume fraction parameter (0.01 <= phi <= 0.05), Rayleigh number (10(5) <= Ra <= 3 x 10(5)), Reynolds number (200 <= Re <= 400), Prandtl number (6.2 <= Pr <= 10.2) and radiation parameter (0.01 <= R <= 0.05) are plotted through graphs. Average Nusselt number values are also calculated for several values of parameters and are also represented through plots. It is found that the rate of heat transfer of nanofluid is augmented up to 6% when single walled carbon nanotubes of 5% are added to the base fluid. Radiation parameter enhances the values of Nusselt number inside the cavity. The present numerical code is validated with available data and noticed good agreement. (C) 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Alexandria University.

Automated summary

The heat transfer and flow characteristics of Tiwari-Das model nanofluid inside a differentially heated square enclosure with single walled carbon nanotubes and water, considering thermal radiation, were investigated in this study. Numerical simulations were conducted to analyze the effects of various parameters on the heat transfer performance, showing that the addition of single walled carbon nanotubes can enhance the heat transfer rate of the nanofluid by up to 6%. Additionally, it was observed that the radiation parameter can increase the Nusselt number values inside the cavity. The numerical code used in this study was validated and showed good agreement with available data.