Investigation of heat transfer performance of alumina nanofluid flowing in the horizontal tube using fuzzy logic rules

ABSTRACT

For the prediction of the heat transfer coefficient (HTC) of water-alumina nanofluid, the fuzzy theory was implemented in the current investigation. For the experimental setup validation, the HTC of water acquired from the experiments at varying pressure was validated with the HTC acquired from the correlation of Chen. Experiments were performed for water-alumina nanofluid at pressure (1–2 bar), mass flux (676–1,014 kg m⁻² s⁻¹), volumetric concentration (0.05–0.15%), and heat flux (94–143 kW m⁻²). Increment in the HTC of water-alumina nanofluid was noticed with the increment in the pressure, mass flux, concentration, and heat flux. Highest HTC of water-alumina nanofluid was 81.08 kW m⁻² K⁻¹ noticed at mass flux 1,014 kg m⁻² s⁻¹, concentration 0.15%, pressure 2 bar, and heat flux 143 kW m⁻². The lowest HTC of water-alumina nanofluid was 21.94 kW m⁻² K⁻¹ noticed at mass flux 676 kg m⁻² s⁻¹, concentration 0.05%, pressure 1 bar, and heat flux 94 kW m⁻². The interaction plots showed the influence of pressure, mass flux, concentration, and heat flux on the HTC of water-alumina nanofluid. The signal-to-noise ratio was employed to study the thermal performance characteristics for the flow boiling of water-alumina nanofluid. Ross, Roy, and Kumar formula was used for predicting the HTC of alumina nanofluid, and there was an error of 10.96% among the predicted and the experimental HTC. The fuzzy logic system showed a fine performance as the average error among the predicted and experimental HTC of water-alumina nanofluid was 0.29%.

KEYWORDS:

• Nanofluid
• Heat Transfer Coefficient (HTC)
• signal to noise ratio
• fuzzy logic
• heat flux

Nomenclature

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Acknowledgments

The authors are thankful to the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University Teaching Department, Rajasthan Technical University, Kota, Rajasthan, India, for the support.

Disclosure statement

There is no conflict of interest by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Manish Dadhich

Manish Dadhich is a research scholar in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University Teaching Department, Rajasthan Technical University, Kota, Rajasthan, India. He received his B.Tech in the year 2010 from Rajasthan Technical University, Kota, Rajasthan, India. He received his M.Tech in the year 2013 from Rajasthan Technical University, Kota, Rajasthan, India. His area of interest in the research include nanofluid boiling, solar-thermal devices, multiphase modeling using CFD and utilization of various statistical and optimization techniques.

Om Shankar Prajapati

Om Shankar Prajapati is currently working as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University Teaching Department, Rajasthan Technical University, Kota, Rajasthan, India. He received his B.Tech in the year 2007 from the University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. He received his M.Tech in the year 2010 and Ph.D. in the year 2016 from the Malaviya National Institute of Technology Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. He has worked on various government-funded research projects. His area of interest in the research includes flow and pool boiling of nanofluids, solar-thermal devices, nano-fluid technology, multiphase modeling using CFD, etc.