Investigation of the Effect of Nanoparticles Mean Diameter on Turbulent Mixed Convection of a Nanofluid in a Horizontal Curved tube Using a Two Phase Approach

Abstract

Turbulent mixed convection of a nanofluid (water/Al2O3, Φ=.02) has been studied numerically. Two-phase <br />mixture model has been used to investigate the effects of nanoparticles mean diameter on the flow parameters. Nanoparticles distribution at the tube cross section shows that the particles are uniformly dispersed. The non-uniformity of the particles distribution occurs in the case of large nanoparticles and/or high value of the Grashof numbers. The study of particle size effect showed that the effective Nusselt number and turbulent intensity increases with the decreased of particle size.