Studying the Effects of Employing Hybrid Nanofluid on Heat Transfer Performance of a Sinusoidal Corrugated Enclosure

This paper numerically examines the laminar natural convection in a sinusoidal corrugated enclosure with a discrete heat source on the bottom wall, filled by pure water, Al۲O۳/water nanofluid and Al۲O۳-Cu/water hybrid nanofluid, which is a new advanced nanofluid with two kinds of nanoparticle materials. The effect of Rayleigh number (۱۰ ۳ ≤Ra≤ ۱۰ ۶ ) and use of water, nanofluid and hybrid nanofluid (in volume concentration of ۰% ≤ φ ≤ ۲%) as the working fluid on temperature fields and heat transfer performance of this enclosure are investigated. The finite volume discretization method is employed to solve the set of governing equations. The open-source code OpenFOAM is used for this purpose. The results indicate that for all Rayleigh numbers studied, employing hybrid nanofluid improves the heat transfer rate compared to nanofluid (with the same volume concentration) and water. The rate of this increase is considerably more at higher values of Ra and φ .

Keywords:

Hybrid nanofluid , Heat transfer enhancement , Natural convection , Corrugated enclosure