Brownian Motion Effects on Natural Convection of Alumina–Water Nanofluid in 2‐D Enclosure

Abstract

This article reports a numerical study of natural convection heat transfer in a differentially heated enclosure filled with a Al2O3–water nanofluid. Fluent v6.3 is used to simulate nanofluid flow. Simulations have been carried out for the pertinent parameters in the following ranges: the Rayleigh number, Ra = 106, 107, and the volumetric fraction of alumina nanoparticles, ϕ = 0 − 4%. The effect of Brownian motion on the heat transfer is considered and examined. The numerical results show a decrease in heat transfer with an increase in particle volume fraction. Similar to experimental results, the Nusselt number increases with the Rayleigh number in the numerical results. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Heat Trans Asian Res; Published online in Wiley Online Library (http://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/htj). DOI 10.1002/htj.21121

Computational fluid dynamic evaluation of heat transfer enhancement in microchannel solar collectors sustained by alumina nanofluid

“…The numerical model showed a good agreement with the experimental results within less than 5% deviation. It was also reported that in the presence of the Brownian force, the heat removal increased along with the nanoparticle concentration …”

“…It was also reported that in the presence of the Brownian force, the heat removal increased along with the nanoparticle concentration. [11][12][13] Coming from another angle, Buongiorno 4 investigated the heat transfer increase in nanofluid by considering the mechanisms which might affect the heat transfer enhancement besides the common thermal conductivity effects: the inertia effects of the Brownian motion, thermophoresis effect, [14][15][16][17][18][19][20] Magnus effect, fluid drainage, and gravity. 3,5,15,21 The heat transfer behavior in the turbulent friction zone of a circular pipe has been experimentally demonstrated for two metallic oxide nanoparticles of titanium and alumina oxide.…”

Water aluminum oxide nanofluid benchmark model

“…Yazdi et al [15] investigated the effect of Brownian motion on the heat enhancement of nanofluid in a cavity filled with water and Al 2 O 3 nanoparticle. It was found that the heat enhancement increased with the increase of the nanoparticles concentration in the presence of Brownian force.…”

Brownian Motion and Thermophoretic Effects in Mini Channels with Various Heights

“…Brownian motion and thermophoresis effects have been studied in detail by many researchers [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]. Their studies covered a large range of engineering configurations with the ultimate goal of heat enhancement.…”