Experimental Investigation of Laminar Convection Heat Transfer of Al2O3-Ethylene Glycol-water Nanofluid as a Coolant in a Car Radiator

Abstract

In this experimental study, heat transfer of a coolant nanofluid, obtained by adding alumina nanoparticles to Ethylene Glycol-water (60:40 by mass), in a car radiator has been investigated. For this purpose, an experimental setup has been designed and constructed. Firstly, to investigate the accuracy of the results, the experiments have been done for the base fluid. Then the experiments have been performed for the nanofluid with different nanoparticles volume fractions of 0.003, 0.006, 0.009 and 0.012. To ensure laminar flow regime three coolant flow rates of 9, 11 and 13 lit/min have been tested. The thermophysical properties have been calculated using the recently presented temperature dependent models in the literature. According to the results, both the convective heat transfer coefficient and Nusselt number increase (about 9%) with increasing the coolant flow rate. Also, convective heat transfer coefficient increases with increasing the nanoparticles volume fraction. Although Nusselt number decreases when nanofluid is utilized, it enhances as the nanoparticles volume fraction increases. Based on the experimental results obtained, A new empirical correlation has been developed for average Nusselt number of Al2O3-EG-water nanofluid in developing region of flat tubes of car radiator for laminar flow and its maximum error is 3%.