Two-phase mixture modeling of turbulent forced convective flow of water-silver nanofluid inside a rifled tube: hydrothermal characteristics and irreversibility behavior

This work aims to present a numerical evaluation of the turbulent forced convective flow of water-silver nanofluid (NF) inside a horizontal internally spiral-ribbed heat exchanger tube using the two-phase mixture model. The considered NF is prepared using an environmentally friendly method. The influences of the volume concentration of silver nanoadditives (phi), Reynolds number (Re), rib width (W), rib height (H) and rib pitch (P) on the convection coefficient, pressure loss, irreversibility in fluid friction ((S) over dot(g,f)) and heat transfer ((S) over dot(g,f)) and total irreversibility ((S) over dot(g,f)) are assessed. The outcomes disclosed that the hydrodynamic characteristics and irreversibility behavior of NF flow in the ribbed tube are better than that of the water flow in the plain tube. In addition, it was found that the best first-law performance belongs to the case phi = 1%, Re = 5000, W = 2 mm, H = 2 mm, P = 4 mm, while the best second-law performance occurs at phi = 0%, Re = 20,000, W = 2 mm, H = 1 mm, P = 5 mm.

Automated summary

This study evaluates the turbulent forced convective performance of water-silver nanofluid inside a horizontal internally spiral-ribbed heat exchanger tube using numerical methods. The effects of various parameters on the fluid characteristics are investigated. The results show that the nanofluid exhibits better hydrodynamic behavior and irreversibility than the plain water flow in the ribbed tube, with specific parameter combinations achieving the best performance.