Natural Convection of Nanofluids in Inclined E-Shaped Enclosures

Abstract

The present work introduces the use of E-shaped enclosure for heat transfer applications. Natural convection of different nanofluids in E-shaped enclosure inclined at different angles is analyzed for a range of Rayleigh numbers. Taking water as base fluid, enhancement in heat transfer by addition of Cu, Al2O3 and TiO2 nanoparticles is compared. The governing equations are discretized using finite volume method using a uniform collocated grid. SIMPLE algorithm with modified Rhie-Chow interpolation is used for pressure velocity coupling. The impact of addition of nanoparticles is analyzed by evaluating the average Nusselt number which is observed to increase considerably by addition of nanoparticles to the base fluid. The maximum enhancement is observed in the case wherein Cu nanoparticles are used. A significant variation of flow patterns is observed for different values of the inclination angle at different Rayleigh numbers and the effect of this on heat transfer characteristics is evaluated.Keywords: Nanofluid; Natural Convection; E-shape; Rayleigh-Benard convectionDimensional velocity components in x and y direction (m/s) U, V Non-Dimensional velocity components in X and Y direction p Pressure (N/m 2 ) P Non-Dimensional Pressure