Purpose
This paper aims to numerically investigate the heat transfer and entropy generation characteristics of water-based hybrid nanofluid in natural convection flow inside a concentric horizontal annulus.
Design/methodology/approach
The hybrid nanofluid is prepared by suspending tetramethylammonium hydroxide-coated Fe3O4 (magnetite) nanoparticles and gum arabic (GA)-coated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in water. The effects of nanoparticle volume concentration and Rayleigh number on the streamlines, isotherms, average Nusselt number and the thermal, frictional and total entropy generation rates are investigated comprehensively.
Findings
Results show the advantageous effect of hybrid nanofluid on the average Nusselt number. Furthermore, the study of entropy generation shows the increment of both frictional and thermal entropy generation rates by increasing Fe3O4 and CNT concentrations at various Rayleigh numbers. Increasing Rayleigh number from 103 to 105, at Fe3O4 concentration of 0.9 per cent and CNT concentration of 1.35 per cent, increases the average Nusselt number, thermal entropy generation rate and frictional entropy generation rate by 224.95, 224.65 and 155.25 per cent, respectively. Moreover, increasing the Fe3O4 concentration from 0.5 to 0.9 per cent, at Rayleigh number of 105 and CNT concentration of 1.35 per cent, intensifies the average Nusselt number, thermal entropy generation rate and frictional entropy generation rate by 18.36, 22.78 and 72.7 per cent, respectively.
Originality/value
To the best knowledge of the authors, there are not any archival publications considering the detailed behaviour of the natural convective heat transfer and entropy generation of hybrid nanofluid in a concentric annulus.
The aim of this investigation is to explore the combined effects of porous medium and surface waviness on the melting and solidification of PCM inside a vertical double-pipe latent heat storage (LHTES) system. The results are compared with the cases of smooth channels and pure PCM. In the system, water is passed through the inner tube while composite PCM is placed in the annulus side. Different effective parameters including wavelength and wave amplitude of the sinusoidal wavy channels, porosity and pore size of the porous structure, Reynolds number and inlet temperature of water are examined to find the optimum geometric as well as operating conditions in both melting/solidification processes. The results show that utilizing both the high conductive porous structure and wavy channel reduces the melting/solidification times significantly. For the best case, the melting and solidification times of PCM reduce by 91.4% and 96.7%, respectively, compared with the smooth channels pure PCM system. The average rate of transferred heat for the wavy channel composite PCM are 10.4 and 18.9 times that for ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT 2 the smooth channel pure PCM case. Comparing with the pure PCM system, the presence of copper foam reduces the effect of channel waviness significantly for both melting/solidification processes.
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