Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878

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Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/etfs

Experimental studies on the convective heat transfer performance

and thermophysical properties of MgOwater nanouid under
turbulent ow
Mohammad Hemmat Esfe a,, Seyfolah Saedodin a, Mostafa Mahmoodi b
a
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Semnan University, Semnan, Iran
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Najafabad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Isfahan, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study present results of experiments on thermal conductivity, viscosity and Turbulent heat transfer
Received 17 June 2013 behavior of Magnesium Oxidewater nanouid in a circular pipe, where the volume fraction of nanopar-
Received in revised form 22 August 2013 ticles in the base uid is less than 1% (low concentration). Pure water and nanouid with particle volume
Accepted 28 August 2013
fraction of 0.0625%, 0.125%, 0.25%, 0.5% and 1% are used as working uid. It is observed that most con-
Available online 5 September 2013
ventional models fail to predict the thermal conductivity and dynamic viscosity of the MgOwater nano-
uid accurately, especially in case of viscosity. Therefore a new correlation of the dynamic viscosity will
Keywords:
be presented based on the obtained experimental results. The experiments are carried out in the fully-
MgO nanoparticles
Thermal performance
developed turbulent regime. The results indicate that addition of low value of nanoparticles to the base
Nusselt number uid motivates the heat transfer to increase remarkably. The measurements also show that the pressure
Thermal conductivity drop of nanouid is slightly higher than that of the base uid and does not increase with increasing the
Viscosity nanoparticles volume fraction. In this paper, experimental results have been compared with the existing
Turbulent ow correlations for nanouid convective heat transfer coefcient in turbulent regime. Also Nusselt number
and friction factor were considered in denition of thermal performance factor. The results show that the
thermal performance factor for all cases are greater than unity which indicate that this nanouid
enhances the heat transfer without huge penalty in pumping power. Hence, applying the methods stud-
ied here could be considered as a good choice in practical application.
2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction loss and consequent pumping consumption involved during the

Convective heat transfer of conventional uid such as water,
ethylene glycol play a signicant role in many industrial systems.
It is well known that the poor thermal properties of aforemen-
tioned uids act as a serious impediment to the growth of en-
ergy-efcient heat exchanger. On the other hand, cooling and
heating are the emerging challenges in some high heat ux sys-
tems including nuclear fusion, microelectronics mechanical sys-
tems (MEMS) and micro-chemical reactions. In order to
overcome these problems (increase heat transfer and reduce the
size of heat exchanger), several techniques have been proposed.
One of them is suspending small amount of nanoparticles to the
conventional heat transfer uids. This type of uid was called
nanouid by Choi [1]. Nanouids indicated a desired future as
heat transfer uids because of its better stability and extraordinary
improve in thermal conductivity even for low concentration of dis-
persed nanoparticles [27].Viscosity is directly related to pressure
Corresponding author. Tel.: +98 9131680130.
E-mail address: M.hemmatesfe@gmail.com (M. Hemmat Esfe).
transport as the thermal conductivity governs heat transfer capa-
bilities of uids. So far, several studies have reported the benets
of nanouids; some of these special advantages include (a) greater
thermal conductivities and much higher surface area (b) excellent
stability and (c) negligible penalty in pumping consumption be-
cause of pressure loss.
A large number of experimental investigations have been per-
formed to study the thermal and rheological characteristics of
nanouids. Lee et al. [8] experimentally studied the thermal con-
ductivity of nanouids containing metal oxide nanoparticles. They
measured thermal conductivity of Al2O3water, Al2O3EG, CuO
water and CuOEG by a transient hot wire method. The results
revealed that the thermal conductivity of nanouid depends on
particles size and shape as well as the thermal properties of base
uid and type of nanoparticles. Effect of temperature on thermal
conductivity of Al2O3water and CuOwater nanouids was
investigated by Das et al. [9]. They concluded that the thermal con-
ductivity of nanouids increase with temperature and the effective
thermal conductivity models are unable to predict the thermal
conductivity of nanouids. Chandrasekar et al. [10] measured

0894-1777/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.expthermusci.2013.08.023
 M. Hemmat Esfe et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878
Nomenclature
cp specic heat, J/kg K
k thermal conductivity, W/m K
L tube length, m
Nu Nusselt number
Pr Prandtl number
Re Reynolds number
T temperature, K
V mean velocity, m/s
m_ mass ow rate, kg/s
D tube diameter, m
h heat transfer coefcient, W/m2 K
Q Heat transfer rate, w
f friction factor
Greek
Dp pressure drop, pa
u nanoparticles volume fraction
thermal properties of Al2O3 nanoparticles including dynamic vis-
cosity and effective thermal conductivity. They found that the vis-
cosity increase is substantially higher than the increase in thermal
conductivity. They also conclude that the thermal conductivity of
nanouids signicantly increases linearly with increasing nanopar-
ticles concentration. Yu et al. [11] conducted experimental study
on thermal conductivity and viscosity of ZnOEG nanouid. Their
ndings indicate that the increased value of the thermal conductiv-
ity is up to 26.5% for 5% nanoparticles concentration. Also they
found that ZnOEG nanouids at low nanoparticles concentrations
behave Newtonian. Yiamsawas et al. [12] conducted experiments
on the viscosity of TiO2 and Al2O3nanoparticles suspended in eth-
ylene glycol and water for high temperature applications.
A large number of investigations on heat transfer enhancement
utilizing nanouids are reported in literature. It is observed that
many of these studies limited to a specic range of turbulent ow
regime and Reynolds number. Pak and Cho [13] conducted some
experiments on the convective heat transfer and ow behavior of
Al2O3water (13 nm) and TiO2water (27 nm) nanouids in a hor-
izontal tube. They proposed the rst regression equation for pre-
diction nanouid Nusselt number which is independent of
nanoparticles concentration. Xuan and Li [14] experimentally
investigated convective heat transfer characteristics of Cuwater
nanouids through a straight tube with constant heat ux wall.
They observed that the nanouid enhances the heat transfer rate
compared to pure water. They also observed that the friction factor
for the nanouids at low concentration produces a negligible pen-
alty in the pumping consumption. Suresh et al. [15] experimentally
studied heat transfer and friction factor characteristics of CuO
water nanouid in plain and helically dimpled tube under
turbulent ow regime with constant heat uxwall. They observed
a signicant enhancement in heat transfer. Fotukian and Nasr
Esfahani [16] reported results of an experimental study on turbu-
lent convective heat transfer and pressure drop of dilute CuO
water nanouid inside a circular tube. They found that addition
of low value of CuO nanoparticles to the base uid increases the
heat transfer coefcient considerably. They observed 20% penalty
in pressure drop in average 25% increase in heat transfer coef-
cient. Syam sundar and Sharma [17] studied convective heat trans-
fer coefcient and friction factor for Al2O3water nanouid in a
plain tube with and without twisted tape insert. Kayhani et al.
[18] Investigated convective heat transfer and pressure drop of
TiO2water nanouid through a uniformly heated horizontal circu-
lar tube under turbulent ow regime. Their experimental ndings
69
m viscosity, pa s
q density, kg/m3
g thermal performance factor
Subscripts
bf base uid
nf nanouid
in inlet
out outlet
m mean
b bulk
P nanoparticle
w water
U uncertainty
indicate increasing heat transfer coefcients with the nanouid
concentration. An experimental study on turbulent convective heat
transfer of Al2O3water and Zrwater in a horizontal tube has been
reported by Williams et al. [19]. Xuan and Roetzel [20] investigated
mechanism of heat transfer in nanouids. They proposed two
different approaches in deriving heat transfer correlation for nano-
uids. Maiga et al. [21] reported results for hydrodynamic and
thermal characteristics of nanouids under both laminar and
turbulent regimes owing through a uniformly heated tube in
utilizing the single phase model with adjusted properties.
The present work is performed for investigation of highly di-
luted MgOwater nanouid under turbulent ow regime which
has not been already reported in literature. The objective of the
present investigation is to estimate experimentally the heat trans-
fer performance and pressure drop of highly diluted MgOwater
nanouid inside a circular tube, accurately. Also, some experi-
ments on the thermal conductivity (in various temperature) and
dynamic viscosity of MgOwater nanouid are conducted and a
correlation for the estimation of dynamic viscosity especially based
on temperature differences is proposed.
2. Experiments
2.1. Experimental setup
The experimental facility and the test setup used in the present
work is shown schematically in Fig. 1. This facility has three closed-
loop cycles. The nanouid loop consists of a pump, a collection tank,
test section and a water plate heat exchanger for cooling of the
working uid. The heat transfer test section is composed of two
concentric tubes. Following the equation Le =D  4:4  Re1=6 [22]
the length of tube in order to create fully developed turbulent ow
at Reynolds number of 29,000 (near maximum Reynolds number)
computed about 15 cm. The heated length of test section is
111 cm. Thus the ow becomes developed turbulent for all cases
studied. Two calibrated RTD-PT100 (with digital indicator) type
temperature sensor of 0.1 C accuracy are measured bulk tempera-
ture of the ow at the inlet and outlet of the test section. Also eight
other K-type (ChromelAlumel) exible thermocouples with the
accuracy of 0:5 C (between 15 C and 375 C) are mounted on
the copper tube wall with distance about 13 cm from each other
to measure the wall temperature distribution. The test section is
heated by hot water which ows over copper tube. The second cycle
contains equipment to create and control the ow rate of hot water
70 M. Hemmat Esfe et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878

Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental setup.

at desired temperature. A temperature controller with PT100 sen-
sor is used to control the temperature of hot water. Two K-type
thermocouples measured inlet and outlet bulk temperature of hot
water to the test section. In addition, a owmeter used to measure
and adjust the hot water ow rate. The third cycle contains a pump,
nanouid heat exchanger, bypass line, condensing unit and temper-
ature controller with a PT100 sensor. This unit controls the temper-
ature of nanouid at the inlet of the test section by changing the
power of the condensing unit. In this loop ow rate is controlled
with two valves, one at the by-pass line and the other at the inlet
of test section.
In order to measure the static (thermodynamic) pressure drop
of uid ow along the test section, a differential pressure transmit-
ter Rosemount 3051 cd (Rosemount, Inc., USA) with the accuracy of
up to 0:1% of the set span was used. This instrument measured
the pressure drop between the inlet and outlet of the test section
during each experiment.
The essential parameters that are measured include hot water
and nanouid ow rate, temperatures and pressure drop. It is
important to note that all of the thermocouples and temperature
sensors were calibrated before inserting to the test section. An or-
dinary thermometer measures the temperature of ambient.
Magnesium Oxide nanoparticles with average diameters of
40 nm are produced by US Research Nanomaterial, Inc.
Nanouid with aforementioned concentration are prepared by
dispersing a specic amount of MgO in distilled water using an
ultrasonic vibrator (Hielscher company, Germany) for 4 h in order
to break down agglomeration of the nanoparticles and make stable
suspension. Cetyl Trimethyl Ammonium Bromide (CTAB) surfac-
tants were utilized to ensure better stability without changing
thermophysical properties of nanouid since the surfactant
concentrations used in the nanouid are very low (e.g., volume
percentage around 0.01%) [23]. Stability of the prepared nanouid
is studied by measuring the PH values. The PH is measured using a
PHmeter (HANNA, HI 83141) and the obtained values are far from
iso-electric point (IEP) of Mgo nanoparticles. In addition stability is
achieved because of very large repulsive force among the nanopar-
ticles when PH is far from isoelectric point. Then nanouid pour
into the nanouid reservoir immediately and tests carried out after
about 3 h that nanouid ows at its maximum ow rate. It must be
noted that during experiments, no sedimentation was observed
even at low ow rate.

2.2. Preparation of the nanouid

Preparation of nanouid is the rst key step in experimental

investigations. In the present study, MgOwater nanouid is pre-
pared utilizing two step method. In order to prepare the nanouid
by dispersing the nanoparticles in a base uid, special mixing and
stabilization methods of the nanoparticles are required. In this
investigation three effective methods were utilized to stabilize
the suspension against sedimentation of nanoparticles. These
methods are: use of ultrasonic processor, addition of surfactants
or surface activators, and change the PH value of the nanouid.
In this work, distilled water is used as liquid medium. The desired
volume concentrations used in this study are 0.01 (1.0%), 0.005
(0.5%), 0.0025 (0.25%), 0.00125 (0.125%), and 0.000625 (0.0625%). Fig. 2. TEM image of MGO nanoparticles.
 M. Hemmat Esfe et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878 71

" 2 #12
Table 1 n 
X
Uncertainty of parameter. @R
UR UV i 7
i1
@V i
Parameter Uncertainty error
Re 3:2% where UR and U V i are the uncertainties associated with the param-
H 4:3% eter R and independent variables (Vi), respectively. In addition, n is
Nu 5:4%
F 6:1%
the number of the independent variables. Eqs. (8)(11) are taken
into account to calculate the uncertainty of Reynolds number, con-
vective heat transfer coefcient, Nusselt number and friction factor
[25].
In this work a transmission electron microscope (TEM) is uti- " 2  2  2 #12
lized to approximate the size and shape of the MgO nanoparticles. d V Vd
Fig. 2 shows that the shape and size of nanoparticles is spherical U Re UV Ud Um 8
m m m2
and about 40 nm, respectively. This method is commonly used by a
wide range of researchers [24,25]. " 2  2  2
As noted above obtaining a proper dispersion requires repeating VdC p DT i;s qdC p DT i;s qVC p DT i;s
Uh U q Ln Ln U d Ln
mechanical mixing and ultrasonic vibration. After 16 h no sedi- L DT o;s UV DT o;s L DT o;s
mentation is observed in any samples of nanouid. Further it  2  2  2 #12
qVdC p DT i;s qVdC p 1 qVdC p 1
should be mentioned that the sedimentation of nanoparticles is U L Ln U DT U DT
L2
o;s
DT o;s L i;s
DT i;s L DT o;s
less important for turbulent ow regime because of the higher im-
posed shear which breaks down the possible agglomerated parti- 9
cles, therefore, turbulent ow regime in this investigation aids to
" 2  2  2 #12
provide a stable suspension during the tests. This view of point d h hd
was presented by Nasiri et al. [26]. U Nu Uh Ud 2
U k 10
k k k
2.3. Data processing 2 !2 !2 !2 !2
2d 2 DP 2DPd 2DPd
The thermal performance of nanouids in circular tube is intro- Uf 4 U
2 DP
U
2 d
2
Uq U
2 L
qLV qLV q2 LV qL2 V
duced in terms of the convective heat transfer coefcient and the
Nusselt number. Applying conservation of energy to a differential !2 312
4DPd
control volume of the uid inside the copper tube, Eq. (1) is ob- Um 5 11
tained [27] as follows: qLV 3
dT b p After computing the uncertainty of the Reynolds and Nusselt
hT s  T b 1
dx _ p
mC number, heat transfer coefcient and friction factor at the right
hand side of the Eqs. (8)(11), the uncertainty of key parameters
By separation of variables and integrating we have:
is calculated. The ndings are presented in Table 1.
 Z 
DT 0 pL 1 L
Ln hdx 2
DTi _
mCp L 0 3. Measure of thermo-physical properties of nanouid
The simplifying yields
  The key parameters for assessing the heat transfer performance
DT 0 T s  T b;o pL  of the nanouids are their thermophysical properties. Therefore
exp h 3
DT i T s  T b;i mC p Before the study of the convective heat transfer of the nanouids
the properties of nanouid must be measured, accurately.
Rearranging Eq. (3) results in:
By assuming that the nanoparticles are well stable in the uid,
 
_ p
 mC T s  T b;i the solid volume fraction of nanoparticles may be considered uni-
h Ln 4 form throughout the tube. Although this assumption may be not
pL T s  T b;o
true in real condition due to some physical phenomena such as
Mean bulk temperature is calculated by: particle migration, it can be a useful tool to measure the physical
T b;i T b;o properties of a nanouid.
Tb 5
2
3.1. Density and specic heat capacitance
Finally, Reynolds and Nusselt number are dened as follows:
 The density of nanouid is calculated using the mixing theory
Vd
Re 6 as follows:
m
qnf uqp 1  uqf 12

hd
Nu The specic heat capacity of MgOwater nanouid can be com-
k puted according to the thermal equilibrium model as follows:
uqcp p 1  uqcp f
2.4. Uncertainty analysis cp;nf 13
qnf
The uncertainty in calculation of the heat transfer parameters is
conducted using the values of Table 1, and based on the method of 3.2. Thermal conductivity behavior
Kline and Mcclintock [28]. This method also have been used by
Pakdaman et al. [29]. Assume the following equation to calculate HamiltonCrosser (HC) [30] model is one of the basic models
the uncertainty of the parameter R. to calculate the thermal conductivity of solidliquid mixtures, keff.
72 M. Hemmat Esfe et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878

1.25 1.25
MgO-Water Exp. data MgO-Water Exp. data
H-C model Batchelor model
Yu - Choi model Wang model
1.2 1.2
Thermal conductivity ratio

1.15 1.15

Relative viscosity
1.1 1.1

1.05 1.05

1 1

0.95
0.95
0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01
Solid volume fraction Solid volume fraction
Fig. 3. Enhanced thermal conductivity ratio versus solid volume fraction. Fig. 5. Relative viscosity with respect to solid volume fraction for exp. data and
Batchelor and Wang models.

1.5
T=24.7
T=30 Exp. data
T=40 1.3 Exp. model
1.4
T=50
T=60
Thermal conductivity ratio

1.2
1.3
Relative viscosity

1.1
1.2

1
1.1

0.9
1

0.9 0.8
0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01 0.012 0 0.002 0.004 0.006 0.008 0.01
Solid volume fraction Solid volume fraction

Fig. 4. Thermal conductivity ratio versus solid volume fraction for different Fig. 6. Comparison between obtained viscosity from experimental data and
temprature. proposed model.

This model is applicable to estimate thermal conductivity of the

mixtures for which the ratio of solid phase thermal conductivity where b is the ratio of the nano-layer thickness to the original par-
to that of liquid phase is larger than 100. The HC equation is: ticle radius. In measurement of thermophysical properties, thermal
keff kp n  1kf n  1ukp  kf conductivity is generally the most difcult property to be measured
14 because of some errors associated during the measurement opera-
kf kp n  1kf  ukp  kf
tion. In the present study, the thermal conductivity of MgOwater
where kp and u are thermal conductivity and nanoparticles concen- nanouids with different nanoparticles concentration up to 1% are
tration, respectively, kf is the thermal conductivity of base uid and measured using a KD2 Pro (decagon Inc,) thermal properties ana-
n is the empirical shape factor given by lyzer with a maximum error of about 5%. The enhanced thermal
3 conductivity ratio is dened as the ratio of nanouid thermal con-
n 15 ductivity to water thermal conductivity.
w
Fig. 3 shows the measured enhanced thermal conductivity ratio
where w is the particle sphericity dened by the ratio of the surface of MgOwater nanouid as a function of nanoparticles concentra-
area of a sphere with a volume equal to that of the particle, to the tion. For the sake of comparison, the enhanced thermal conductiv-
surface area of the particle. For spherical particles the value of n ity ratio calculated using HamiltonCrosser (HC) model, Eq. (14),
is 3. Another model applied for calculation of the nanouid thermal and YuChoi model, Eq. (16), are also presented in Fig. 3. From the
conductivity is proposed by Yu and Choi [31] as follows: gure it is evident that the thermal conductivity ratio is greater
than1 for all nanouids and it is increased with increase in nano-
keff kp 2kf 2ukp  kf 1 b3
16 particles concentration. The maximum thermal conductivity is be-
kf kp 2kf  ukp  kf 1 b3 longed to maximum value of u. Also, it can be seen that the rate
 M. Hemmat Esfe et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878 73

increase in thermal conductivity at low nanoparticles concentra- 200

Exp. data
tions is more than that at high concentration. The reason may be Maiga eq.
that, the increase in nanouid viscosity is much higher than the 180 Petukhov eq.
enhancement in thermal conductivity at high nanoparticles con- Gnielinski eq.
centration. Also Fig. 3 shows that the HamiltonCrosser (HC) 160 Dittus-Boelter eq.

and Yu and Choi models underestimate the thermal conductivity

140

Nusselt number
ratio of MgOwater nanouid. This is due to the fact that both
models do not take into account the effects of important factors
120
such as the particle size, temperature and interfacial layer on the
thermal conductivity of nanouids. It is important to note that 100
the thermal conductivity of nanouids depends on the thermal
conductivity of solid particles and base uid, nanoparticle concen- 80
tration, shape of the nanoparticles, thickness and thermal conduc-
tivity of nanolayer [32] and temperature. 60
The inuence of temperature on enhancement of thermal
conductivity of nanouids is also studied by measurement of the 40
thermal conductivity of nanouids with various nanoparticles con-
centration at different temperatures ranging from 24.7 to 60 C in 20
10000 15000 20000
Fig. 4. As the temperature increases, signicant increases in thermal Re
conductivity are evident for all concentration. This trend is consis-
tent with the previously reported results for nanouids [33]. At Fig. 7. Experiment Nusselt number and prediction correlation for pure water versus
higher temperatures of the uid, nanoparticles agglomeration Reynolds number.
would break more easily and the nanoparticles will disperse more
uniformly inside the water. Further, random movement of the
nanoparticles increases as the temperature goes up and conse- 20000
quently the energy is transmitted more quickly inside the uid. = 1 Vol%
= 0.5 Vol%
= 0.25 Vol%
3.3. Effective viscosity = 0.125 Vol%
Heat transfer coefficient(W/m2K)

= 0.0625 Vol%
Many models of viscosity have been used by researchers to esti- 15000 = Water (base fluid)
mate the effective viscosity of nanouid as a function of nanopar-
ticles concentration. In this investigation, Batchelor equation has
been utilized for calculation of viscosity, which is applicable to
spherical particles in volume concentration less than 5.0 vol.%. This
equation is expressed as: 10000

2
lnf ;Batchelor 1 2:5u 6:2u lf 17

Moreover, Wang et al. [34] introduced a model to predict the

viscosity of nanouids which is presented as:
5000
lnf ;Wang 1 7:3u 123u2 lf 18

where lnf is the viscosity of the nanouid and lf is the viscosity of 3000 6000 9000 12000 15000 18000
the water. The viscosity of the MgOwater are measured using Re
Brookeld viscometer (LVDV-I Prime + UL adapter) supplied by
Fig. 8. Experimental heat transfer coefcient of nanouid at different Reynolds
Brookeld engineering laboratories of USA. numbers.
The comparison of the Relative viscosity with respect to nano-
particles concentration for experimental data, Batchelor and Wang
models are shown in Fig. 5. baseline for comparison the nanouid data, several experiments
were implemented on distilled water. The values of Nusselt num-
3.4. Proposed model ber determined from experimental results for water compared
with those predictions of Gnielinski [35], DittusBoelter [27], Pet-
In this study, the experimental correlation has been proposed ukhov [36] and Maiga et al. [21] equations for the turbulent ow.
for the dynamic viscosity of MgO (40 nm) by mean of the polyno- Gnielinski equation for turbulent ows:
mial curve tting based on the experimental data.  0:11 "  23 #
f =8Re  1000Pr Pr d
lnf 1 11:61u 109u lf 2
19 Nu q 2 1 20
f
1 12:7 8Pr3  1 Prf L
Fig. 6 shows the comparison between experimental data and
proposed correlation. Which is applied in the range of 0.5 < Pr < 106 and
2300 < Re < 5  106. In this formulation, the Darcy coefcient is pro-
4. Results and discussion posed as follows:
1
4.1. Validation of the results f 2
21
1:82log10 Re  1:64
In order to validate the reliability of the experimental setup for where Re is the Reynolds number, Pr and Prf are the Prandtl num-
measuring the convective heat transfer coefcient and to provide a bers calculated at the water bulk temperature and at the inner wall
74 M. Hemmat Esfe et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878

180 1.7
= 0.0625 Vol % = 1 Vol%
= 0.125 Vol % = 0.5 Vol%
160 1.6 = 0.25 Vol%
= 0.25 Vol %

Heat transfer coefficient ratio (h nf / hw)

= 0.5 Vol % = 0.125 Vol%
140 = 1 Vol % 1.5 = 0.0625 Vol%
Nusselt number

120 1.4

100 1.3

80 1.2

60 1.1

40 1

20 0.9
3000 5000 7000 9000 11000 13000 15000 17000 19000 0 5000 10000 15000 20000
Re Re
Fig. 9. Experimental Nusselt number of nanouid at different Reynolds number. Fig. 10. Heat transfer coefcient ratio against Reynolds number.

thermal conductivity increases with increasing particle concentra-

temperature respectively; L is the tube length and d is the tube
diameter. The bulk temperature is an average between the inlet
and outlet uid temperatures. DittusBoelter equation [27] for tur-
bulent ows is as follows:
Nu 0:023Re0:8 Pr0:4
Petukhov equation [32] is presented as:
f =8RePr
Nu 0:5 2
1:07 12:7f =8 Pr3  1
which is applied in the range of
104 < Re < 5  106. Maiga equation [21]:
Nu 0:085Re0:71 Pr0:35
Fig. 7 shows the comparison between experimental data and
values obtained from the above mentioned equations for different
Reynolds number. It is seen that there is a good concurrence be-
tween experimental data and classical correlations. It is evident
that the Gnielinski equation [35] predicts better the experimental
Nusselt values for water compared to other equation. Having vali-
dated the accuracy of the experimental system, the experimental
nding of nanouids are presented and discussed in subsequent.
4.2. Convective heat transfer coefcient and Nusselt number of
nanouids
tion. On the other hand, the enhancement of the thermal conduc-
tivity increases the convective heat transfer. The increase in
nanoparticles concentration also increases the viscosity, which
leads to an increase in the boundary layer thickness. Therefore it
causes a decrease in the convective heat transfer and Nusselt num-
22
ber. As shown in Figs. 8 and 9 addition of nanoparticles enhances
the convective heat transfer and Nusselt number. This implies that
the impact of the thermal conductivity augmentation overcome
the effect of the viscosity increase. This predominant effect of ther-
23
mal conductivity augmentation may also include augmentation of
thermal conductivity because of the particle migration hypothesis.
0.5 < Pr < 200 and The ratio of heat transfer coefcient of nanouid to that of pure
water at the same Reynolds number (and same particle concentra-
tion) with respect to Reynolds numbers can be observed in Fig. 10.
24
It is evident that all of experimental data is greater than unity;
therefore a considerable enhancement of heat transfer coefcient
can be obtained by dispersing low concentration of MgO nanopar-
ticles into water. For instance, at Reynolds number of about 11,700
the Nusselt number enhancement of MgO nanouids with
0.0625%, 0.125%, 0.25% and 0.5% volume fractions are 2.8%, 6.4%,
7.8% and 16.7%, respectively. These values for Reynolds number
1.5
= 1 Vol%
= 0.5 Vol%
= 0.25 Vol%
1.4 = 0.125 Vol%
Nusselt number ratio ( Nu / Nu )

= 0.0625 Vol%
The MgOwater nanouids at ve different volumetric concen-
trations (i.e. 1%, 0.5%, 0.25%, 0.125% and 0.0625%) are examined in 1.3
the present experimental work. The Reynolds number varied be-
tween about 3200 and 19,000. The average heat transfer coefcient
of nanouids with respect to Reynolds number for different solid 1.2
volume fraction is shown in Fig. 8. It is observed that the heat
transfer coefcient of all nanouids is signicantly higher than that
1.1
of the base uid. The experimental results indicate that addition of
low value of nanoparticles to pure water (even 0.0625%) improved
the heat transfer performance signicantly. 1
Fig. 9 shows experimental Nusselt numbers of nanouids with
different nanoparticles concentration versus Reynolds number in
the turbulent ow regime. As shown in Fig. 9, the Nusselt number 0.9
3000 8000 13000 18000
of the nanouids increase with increasing the Reynolds number as
Re
well as the nanoparticle concentration. Addition of MgO nanopar-
ticles increases the thermal conductivity and the augmentation of Fig. 11. Nusselt number ratio against Reynolds number.
 M. Hemmat Esfe et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878 75

160 = 0.0625 Vol% 160 = 0.125 Vol%

140 140

+9%
Measured Nusselt

120

Measured Nusselt
120
+3%
-5%

100 100
-14%

80 80

60 60

40 40

40 60 80 100 120 140 160 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Predicted Nusselt from Gnielinski Eq. Predicted Nusselt from Gnielinsky Eq.
= 0.00625 Vol .% = 0.0125 Vol .%

160 160 = 0.5 Vol %

= 0.25 Vol%

140 140
Measured Nusselt

Measured Nusselt

120 +11% 120 +18%

100 3% 100

80 80

60 60

40 40

40 60 80 100 120 140 160 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Predicted Nusselt from Gnielinski Eq. Predicted Nusselt from Gnielindki Eq.
= 0.25 Vol .% = 0.5 Vol .%
180
= 1 Vol %
160

140
Measured Nusselt

+23%
120

100

80

60

40

40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

Predicted Nusselt from Gnielinski
= 1 Vol .%
Fig. 12. Comparison of the measured Nusselt number and calculated values for different solid volume fraction.

of about 6700 are 2.9%, 13.1%, 14% and 21.8%, respectively. In cur- hw) was about 1.36 for 1.0% concentration of MgO nanoparticles in
rent experiments the maximum enhancement of heat transfer (hnf/ water at Reynolds number of 7331. Moreover when the
76 M. Hemmat Esfe et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878

2 0.05
= 1 Vol% Blasius Eq. for water
= 0.000625 Vol%
= 0.5 Vol%
= 0.00125 Vol%
1.8 = 0.25 Vol%
= 0.0025 Vol%
= 0.125 Vol%
= 0.005 Vol%
= 0.0625 Vol% = 0.01 Vol%
1.6 0.04

Friction factor
Pnf / Pw

1.4

1.2 0.03

0.8 0.02

0.6
0 3000 6000 9000 12000 15000 18000 5000 10000 15000 20000
Re Re

Fig. 13. Ratio of pressure drop of nanouid to that of pure water (DPnf/DPw) versus Fig. 15. Comparison of friction factor of nanouid with Blasius equation.
Reynolds number for different solid volume fraction.

1.6
= 0.0625 Vol %
0.045
= 0.125 Vol %
Present work 1.5 = 0.25 Vol %
Blasius Eq. = 0.5 Vol %
= 1 Vol %
0.04 1.4

1.3
Friction factor

0.035
1.2

0.03 1.1

0.025
0.9

0.8
0.02 2000 5000 8000 11000 14000 17000
0 5000 10000 15000 20000 25000
Re
Re
Fig. 16. Variation of thermal performance factor with Reynolds number for various
Fig. 14. Comparison of measured friction factor of water with Blasius theory.
solid volume fraction of nanouids ow inside the straight tube.

nanoparticles concentration increases, the hnf/hw parameter does

not change with changing Reynolds number. As Pak and Cho [13]
Williams et al. [19] previously. Fig. 12 compares the measured
and Xuan and Li [14] had claimed, the ratio can be considered inde-
Nusselt number of nanouid (in various nanoparticles concentra-
pendent of the Reynolds number.
tion) and estimated values obtained from a valid equations (i.e.
Similarly, Fig. 11 shows the enhancement of nanouid Nusselt
Gnielinski) using the nanouid mixture properties. It can be ob-
number at various nanoparticles concentration versus Reynolds
served that the Nusselt number is calculated by the Gnielinski
number. In the present tests, the maximum amount of Nunf/Nuw
equation to within 14% and +3% for 0.0625 vol.%, 5% to 9% for
was about 1.32 for 1% volume fraction of MgO nanoparticles in
u 0:125%, from 3% to 11% for u 0:25%, +18% for u 0:5%
water at Reynolds number of 7331. Correspondingly as the value
and +23% for u 1%. It is obvious that for lower value of u, Gni-
of u increases the value of Nunf/Nuw does not change with increas-
elinski correlation has a minor difference with the predicted Nus-
ing Reynolds number for all concentrations of MgO studied in this
selt number. This issue conrms the claim of Kayhani et al. [18]
work like Kayhani et al. [18] study. However Duangthongsuk and
about using Gnielinski correlation for predicting Nusselt number
Wongwises [37] previously expressed that this enhancement in-
in nanouid.
creases with increasing in Reynolds number.

4.3. Predict Nusselt number 4.4. Pressure drop of nanouid

The prediction of nanouid convective heat transfer coefcients It is necessary to measure the pressure drop of nanouid be-
in turbulent regime by means of existing correlations and models sides the heat transfer performance in order to apply nanouids
using the effective nanouid properties have been concluded by in industrial units. The pressure drop of nanouid along the test
 M. Hemmat Esfe et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878
section are experimentally measured by a differential pressure
transmitter (DPT Rosemount 3051 cd). The pressure drop mea-
sured across the tube is utilized to calculate the friction factor
using the following equation:
Dp d
f 25
1=2qm2 L
Fig. 13 shows the ratio of pressure drop of nanouid to that of
pure water (DPnf/DPw) with respect to Reynolds number. The
pressure drop increased about 16% (average) for nanouid with
1% volume concentration. MgOwater nanouids increase the
pumping power, hence, found an optimum value of u important
which more heat transfer enhancement and less ow resistance
occur.
4.5. Friction factor
To evaluate the accuracy of uid ow measurements inside the
tube the experimental friction factor is compared with the theoret-
ical values obtain using Blasius relation [27] for distilled water as
follows:
f 0:316Re0:25 26
This relation is for Re < 30,000 using the properties of the spe-
cic MgOwater. Fig. 14 shows the friction factor of the distilled
water with respect to Reynolds number. This gure illustrates that
the friction factor experimental data for water and theoretical pre-
dictions using above equation are in excellent agreement.
As shown in Fig. 15, the friction factors for nanouids according
to Blasius prediction indicating that pumping power can be pre-
dicted with a well-known correlation when the solid volume frac-
tion of nanouid is less than 1%. This implies that the friction factor
relation for the single-phase ow can be extended to water-based
MgO nanouids. This trend is in general agreement with the results
of Xuan and Li [14], Kayhani et al. [18] and Pak and Cho [13] under
turbulent ow.
4.6. Thermal performance factor
Utilizing nanouid ow inside the tube instead of the base li-
quid (water) ow, increased the convective heat transfer coef-
cient as shown in previous sections. However, these increased
heat transfer techniques were both accompanied with enhance in
pressure loss which can limit the use of MgOwater nanouid in
practical applications. In order to nd the optimum work
conditions, a further investigation on the performance of these
techniques should be executed to consider pressure drop enhance-
ment besides heat transfer augmentation, simultaneously. In other
words, the main reason for proposing the thermal performance
factor is due to the fact the nanoparticles dispersed in water en-
hance the thermal conductivity and the viscosity of the base liquid
at the same time, and increase with increasing the solid volume
fraction of nanoparticles. The increasing of the thermal conductiv-
ity leads to an increment in the heat transfer performance, while
the enhancing of the viscosity of the nanouid leads to a decrease
in the heat transfer rate.
Therefore to nd the optimum condition, the thermal perfor-
mance factor, g, is used as the ratio of the Nusselt number ratio
to the friction factor ratio at the same pumping power:
1 Gnielinski correlation at low concentration.
g Nunf =Nuf =fnf =ff 3 27
Apparently, the heat transfer technique is more in the favor of
heat transfer increment rather than in the favor of friction factor
enhancement when the thermal performance factor is greater than
77
1. Therefore, the heat transfer methods with thermal performance
factor greater than 1 would be feasible choices in practical
applications.
Fig. 16 presents the variation of thermal performance factor
versus Reynolds number for MgOwater nanouids with different
nanoparticles concentrations (0.0625, 0.125, 0.25, 0.5 and 1 vol.%)
owing inside the test section. As can be seen the thermal perfor-
mance factor for all the cases considered are greater than unity
which illustrates that the heat transfer enhancement is possible
by utilizing of nanouid without huge penalty in pumping
consumption. In this work, maximum thermal performance factor
obtained 1.32 for thermal performance factor at 1% volume con-
centration. At 0.5% volume concentration varies between 1.036
and 1.20. Also, thermal performance factor is calculated 1.10 at
0.25 vol.% and 1.111 at 0.125 vol.% in the best situation.
As a result, for all of the solid volume fraction of nanoparticles
investigated in this work, the impact of thermal enhancement
may overcome the effect of the increment of the viscosity. These
nding are in agreement with large number studies that reported
in literature such as He et al. [38], Abbasian and Amani [39], Xuan
and Li [14] and Nguyen et al. [40].
In addition, there are a few investigations that believe that the
nanoparticles at higher solid volume fraction may become com-
bined together, which lead to the size became larger and cause a
decrease in the thermal performance factor.
According to present work, the available nding are found to be
different from those obtained from other researchers, such as Has-
hemi and Akhavan-Behabadi [41] and Pak and Cho [13].
As discussed above, it is not easy to explain this difference in
behavior. One can be attributed to several factors, such as particle
shape, particle type, particle size, effect of sonication or adding sur-
factant, particle preparation, type of base uid, and even solution
chemistry (e.g. PH value). Therefore, more experimental study is
needed in order to accurate description of heat transfer behavior
of nanouids for using them in industrial applications.
5. Conclusion
An experimental investigation has been carried out on MgO
water nanouids through a straight tube. The main case of investi-
gation was to evaluate the effect of nanoparticle existence or
concentration on thermal conductivity, dynamic viscosity, convec-
tive heat transfer characteristics and pressure drop in the turbulent
ows. For all concentration, the thermal conductivity ratio is great-
er than unity. The maximum thermal conductivity is belonged to
maximum nanouid concentration. Also, the rate of increase in
thermal conductivity at low solid values of u is more than that
at high concentration. On the other hand as the temperature in-
creases, signicant increases in thermal conductivity are evident
for all concentration.
The experimental results shows that the addition of nanoparti-
cles and increase in Re enhance the Nusselt number in turbulent
ow. For MgOwater nanouid with 0.5% volume fraction, the
Nusselt number increased by 21.8% at Re = 6700.Further maximum
enhancement of heat transfer coefcient was about 35.93% for 1.0%
volume fraction of nanouid at Re = 7331. However, the results do
not indicate that an abnormal enhancement of Nusselt number for
nanouids. Comparison between experimental results with exist-
ing correlations for Nusselt number of nanouids illustrated that
experimental results are in good agreement especially with
Also, the thermal performance factor for all the cases
considered are greater than unity which illustrates that the heat
transfer enhancement is possible by utilizing of nanouid without
huge penalty in pumping power.
78 M. Hemmat Esfe et al. / Experimental Thermal and Fluid Science 52 (2014) 6878

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