Experimental and Numerical Investigations on Hydrodynamics of Nanofluid Flowing in Coiled Tubes

Abstract

A numerical model was developed to analyze the hydrodynamics of TiO₂-water nanofluids flowing through straight and coiled tubes in laminar flow regime. Pressure drop of nanofluid predicted from this model was validated with experiments for identical dimensions of tubes and process conditions. The velocity contours of flow in straight as well as coiled tube were examined. The present study revealed that there was 74% decrease in pressure drop when the straight tube diameter was increased from 0.003 m to 0.0072 m. There was 46–51% decrease in friction factor when curvature ratio (D_c/d_t) was increased from 7.54 to 12.24 for 200<De < 850.

Keywords:

• Nanofluid
• forced convection
• pressure drop
• numerical modeling
• fluid dynamics

Acknowledgements

This study is financially supported by GGSIP University, New Delhi, India under FRGS.