CFD Simulation on Turbulent Forced Convection of Copper Oxide (CuO) -Water Nanofluids in a Horizontal Circular Pipe

The present study provides a detailed investigation on simulation of Copper oxide nanofluids in a simple horizontal circular pipe considering turbulent forced convection, with a constant heat flux boundary condition. The simulation is carried out using three different models available in fluent viz. Newtonian single phase model, Eulerian-mixture and Eulerian-Eulerian multiphase models. The Reynold number of the flow is varied along with volume concentration of nanoparticles varying form low to high. Nanofluids rheology is studied by considering standard k-ε two equation turbulence model with enhanced wall treatment considering appropriate wall y⁺ values. The effective temperature dependent thermo-physical properties for nanofluids were seized from the literatures. The results from the simulation clearly showed an increase in the heat transfer characteristics with the addition of nanoparticles compared to that of base fluid alone. Eulerian-Mixture model predicted the Nusselt number near to that of the experimental results from literature.