Experimental investigation of oxide nanofluids laminar flow convective heat transfer

In the present investigation nanofluids containing CuO and Al2O3 oxide nanoparticles in water as base fluid in different concentrations produced and the laminar flow convective heat transfer through circular tube with constant wall temperature boundary condition were examined. The experimental results emphasize that the single phase correlation with nanofluids properties (Homogeneous Model) is not able to predict heat transfer coefficient enhancement of nanofluids. The comparison between experimental results obtained for CuO/water and Al2O3/water nanofluids indicates that heat transfer coefficient ratios for nanofluid to homogeneous model in low concentration are close to each other but by increasing the volume fraction, higher heat transfer enhancement for Al2O3/water can be observed. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.