Study of heat transfer due to laminar flow of copper-water nanofluid through two isothermally heated parallel plates

Effect of copper-water nanofluid has been studied as a cooling medium to simulate the heat transfer behaviour in a two-dimensional (infinite depth) horizontal rectangular duct, where top and bottom walls are two isothermal symmetric heat sources. The governing continuity, momentum and energy equations for a laminar flow are being discretized using a finite volume approach using a power law profile approximation and has been solved iteratively, through alternate direction implicit, using the SIMPLER algorithm. The thermal conductivity of nanofluid has been determined by model proposed by Patel et al. Study has been conducted considering the fluid as Newtonian as well as non-Newtonian for a wide range of Reynolds number (Re = 5 to 1500) and solid volume fraction (0.00 <= phi <= 0.050). It has been observed that the heat transfer augmentation is possible using nanofluid in comparison to conventional fluids for both the cases. The rate of heat transfer increases with the increase in flow as well as increase in solid volume fraction of the nanofluid. Unlike natural convection the increase in heat transfer is almost same for both the cases. (C) 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.