Ramis M.K et al.

/ International Journal of Engineering Science and Technology (IJEST)

Heat Transfer Enhancement Using CuO Nanofluids -The Effect of Sonication Time on the Paradoxical Behaviour.
Ramis M.K1*, Jawaz Pasha2, Shebeer A Rahim3
Faculty, Department of Mechanical Engineering, P.A College of Engineering, Mangalore INDIA Corresponding Author: e-mail: rameezmk@yahoo.co.in, Tel +91-9035960243, Fax.+91-824-2284705 2 Research ScholarDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, P.A College of Engineering, Mangalore INDIA
* 3

Abstract Usual heat transfer uids with suspended ultra ne particles of nanometer size are namedas nanouids, which have opened a new dimension in heat transfer processes. The recentinvestigations conrm the potential of nanouids in enhancing heat transfer required forpresent age technology. The present study aims at a critical analysis of the apparently paradoxical behaviour of heat transfer with a special focus on the effect of sonication time on the heat transfer behaviour of nanofluids. To this end CuO nanofluids of different concentrations (0.05%, 0.1%, 0.15%, 0.2%) are prepared at various sonication times (2, 3 and 4 hours) and their effects on the heat transfer characteristics are investigated. Accordingly, an unsteady state heat transfer analysis of a heated vertical cylinder cooled in the aforesaid aCuO nanofluid is carried out.Investigation shows that the sonication time greatly influences the heat transfer performance of the nanofluids and this influence is affected by the nanoparticle concentration. However a solid conclusive remark as an increasing or decreasing trend could not be observed during these studies. More research needed in future to determine the exactness Sonication time effect. Keywords: CuO nano particles, heat transfer co efficient, sonication time, unsteady heat transfer 1. Introduction Nanofluids are dilute liquid suspensions of nanoparticles with at least one critical dimension smaller than ~100nm. Much attention has been paid in the past decade to this new type of composite material because of its enhanced properties and behaviour associated with heat transfer, mass transfer,wetting and spreading and antimicrobial activities and the number of publications related to nanofluids increases in an exponential manner. The enhanced thermal behaviour of nanofluids could provide a basis for an enormous innovation for heat transfer intensification, which is of major importance to a number of industrial sectors including transportation, power generation, micro-manufacturing, thermal therapy for cancer treatment, chemical and metallurgical sectors, as well as heating, cooling, ventilation and air-conditioning. Nanofluids are also important for the production of nanostructured materials, for the engineering of complex fluids as well as for cleaning oil from surfaces due to their excellent wetting and spreading behaviour. There is, therefore, an urgent need for new and innovativecoolants with improved performance. Nanofluids, which are a colloidal mixture of nanoparticles (1100 nm) and a base liquid (nanoparticle fluid suspensions), is the term first coined by Choi in 1995 [1]. Past decade has seen increasing research activities in heat intensification using nanofluids. An exhaustive review of this is found in Wang and Mujumdar [2, 3]. The published studies can be classified into three categories namely, effective thermal conductivity studies under the static conditions [4-16], convective heat transfer studies [17-29]) and phase change heat transfer studies [30-37]. A detailed report on nanofluids behavior under these conditions can be found in Wang and Mujumdar [2, 3] and Wen and Ding [17]. . The investigations on nanofluids behaviour under forced convective also have reported enhancement in heat transfer characteristics except for very few studies. Wang and Mujumdar [2,3] concluded that the particle shape or aspect ratio of the particle is a significant parameter to affect the thermal performance of nanofluids. The conflicting results observed from limited data for the effect of nanoparticles on the boiling heat transfer performance indicated that the understanding of the thermal behavior of nanofluids related to the boiling heat transfer is still poor. In the reviewed studies, however, only the surface roughness is the most often considered parameter. Systematic studies should be carried out to include the interaction between the surface and nanofluids (wettability), also as suggested by Wen and Ding [37]. Compared with the research effort in forced convective and phase change heat transfer, relatively few studies have been carried on natural convective heat transfer. Khanaferet al. [23] numerically investigated the heat transfer behaviour of nanofluids in a two-dimensional horizontal enclosure. The random motion of nanoparticles was considered through a dispersion model similar to thermal dispersion models for flows through porous

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media. . The enhancement was also observed experimentally by Nnanna et al. [28] for Cu / ethylene glycol nanofluids and by Nnanna and Routhu [29] for alumina / water nanofluids. However different experimental results have been observed by Putra et al. [22] for natural convective heat transfer of aqueous CuO and Al2O3 nanofluids inside ahorizontal cylinder. Unlike the results of thermal conduction and forced convection, experiments at Rayleigh number from 106 to 109 showed a systematic and significant deterioration in natural convective heat transfer. The deterioration increased with particle concentration and was more pronounced for CuO nanofluids. For example at a given Rayleigh number of 5x107, 300% and 150% decrease in the Nusselt number was observed for 4 wt% of CuO and Al2O3 nanofluids, respectively. The aspect ratio of the cylinder was also observed to influence heat transfer greatly. Wen and Ding [17] also addressed the problem of natural convective heat transfer of TiO2 (3040 nm)/water nanofluids in a vessel which was composed of two horizontal aluminum discs of diameter 240 mm and thickness 10 mm separated by a 10 mm gap. They investigated both the transient and steady heat transfer coefficients for various concentrations of nanofluids. Similar to Putra et al. [22], they also found that the natural convective heat transfer coefficient decreased as compared to that of pure water. Furthermore, such deterioration increased with nanoparticle concentrations. The above short review shows that very few studies [17, 22, 23, 28, and 29] have been reported on natural convective heat transfer and that too the conclusions are inconsistent. The studies [23, 28 and 29] reported an enhancement of heat transfer whereas the researchers in [17 and 22] reported a deterioration of heat transfer. It has been clearly shown by the available results that the heat transfer behavior of nanofluids is very complex and the application of nanofluids for heat transfer enhancement should not be decided only by their effective thermal conductivity. Many other factors such as particlefluid interactions particle size shape and distribution, micro-convection and pH value have important influence on the heat transfer performance of the nanofluids in natural convective heat transfer, which should be identified further in future work. This apparently paradoxical behaviour of heat transfer has motivated the authors to carry out a critical analysis of all the possible factors that affect the heat transfer process using nanofluids with a special focus on the particlefluid interactions which is greatly influenced by the sonication time. To this end CuO nanofluids of different concentrations are prepared at various sonication times and their effects on the heat transfer characteristics are investigated. Accordingly, an unsteady state heat transfer analysis of a heated vertical cylinder cooled in the aforesaid alumina nanofluids is carried out.The findings in this regard are very important due to the fact that nano-fluids are being advocated as alternative heat transfer fluids and hence their characteristics during storage or low velocity applications where unsteady natural convection can be significant have to be known with sufficient accuracy. 2. Methodology 2.1 Preparation of Nanofluids:Nano-fluids are prepared by dispersing CuO nano-particles into water as a base fluid. The reasons for using CuO nano-fluids are that they are widely used in this research area owing to requirements such as stable, uniform, and continuous suspension without any outstanding chemical change of the base fluid and also that the physical properties of CuO nanofluid have been well documented. CuO nanoparticles used in this work are manufactured by Sigma Aldrich Limited, USA. The size has a normal distribution in a range from 10 nm to 100 nm (47 nm avg. diameter is given from the manufacturer). In order to ensure a stable, uniform, continuous suspension, the dispersion solutions are vibrated in an ultrasonic Cleaner, Model 405 supplied by Hwashin Technology Co., Korea, shown in Fig. 1. CuO nano-fluids with mass concentrations namely 0.05%, 0.1 % 0.15% and 0.2 % is prepared by controlling the amounts of the nano particles.800 ml of water was taken in a round bottom flask with appropriate mass fraction of the nanoparticle and placed in the Ultrasonic Cleaner for the required time. The sonication temperature was maintained same in all the cases. In order to study the effect of sonication time on the heat transfer behavior, each concentration sample was sonicated for 2, 3 and 4 hours separately. 2.2 Unsteady State Heat Transfer Apparatus:The experimental setup consists of a hot water bath heated by means of a heating coil. A mild steel cylinder serves as the test piece. Thermocouples located at half of the cylinder height measures the center temperature of the cylinder. The temperatures are measured with digital temperature indicator and a temperature recorder connected in parallel. Another vessel serves as the cold water bath for the cooling purpose. Fig. 2 represents the above mentioned experimental set up.

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Fig. 1 Ultrasonic Cleaner, Model 405 Fig. 2 Unsteady State Heat Transfer Apparatus

2.3 Experimental Procedure and Analysis: The test piece was first heated to a temperature of 750C in the hot bath and then at first cooled in the pure water bath. The temperature of the test piece was recorded at a time interval of 5 seconds till it attained almost a steady state temperature. The experiment was repeated for cooling the test piece in CuO nanofluids of 0.05% mass concentration which was prepared with a sonication time of 2,3 and 4 hours. It is worth mentioning here that the initial temperature of the cooling fluid was maintained uniform in all the cases.The above analysis was repeated for CuO nanofluids of 0.1%, 0.15%, 0.2% mass concentration. The lumped system heat transfer analysis was used to find the heat transfer coefficient h. The variation of this parameter with time is plotted for the various coolant baths. Eqns. (1) give the details of the calculation of this parameter.

where h T(t) T() T(i) heat transfer coefficient inW/m2k temp of the test piece at any time instant in ambient temp in bath temp in density of the test piece material kg/m3 As Cp t surface area m2 specific heat capacity of test piece material J/kg K time in seconds

2.4 Validation: The validation of the lumped parameter heat transfer analysis was done by calculating the Biot number Bi which is given by theequation:

Where Lc is the characteristic length and ks is the thermal conductivity of the test piece. It was found that the value of Bi was far below 0.1, which is the required condition to carry out the lumped parameter analysis.

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3. Results and discussions Effect of sonication time on CuO nanoparticles of various concentrations Figure 3 depicts variation of heat transfer coefficient (h) with time, for CuO nanofluid of 0.05% mass concentration prepared with different sonication time of 2, 3 and 4hrs respectively. As expected, it is very apparent from this figure that the heat transfer coefficient decreases with respect to time. It can be easily noticed from this figure that in the initial period of cooling the nanofluids prepared with 2hrs and 3hrs sonication time exhibits maximum of the heat transfer coefficient compare to 4hrs sonication time preparation. The nanofluids with 4 hours sonication time gives almost the least of the heat transfer coefficient throughout.These trends indicate that the rate of decrease in heat transfer coefficient in the three preparations is varying and no conclusive remarks can be drawn. Figure 4 depicts variation of heat transfer coefficient (h) with time, for CuO nanofluid of 0.1% mass concentration prepared with different sonication time of 2, 3 and 4hrs respectively, as earlier mention nanofluids prepared with sonication time of 2hrs and 3hrs still exhibits similar behavior for 0.1% mass concentration also. Interesting change in the behavior of nanofluids prepared by 4hrs sonication time can be observed from the above fig. It is clear that the fluid prepared by 4hrs sonication time have better heat transfer co efficient among all these preparations.

Fig. 3 Variation of heat transfer coefficient with time for 0.05 CuO nanofluids prepared at various sonication time

Fig. 4 Variation of heat transfer coefficient with time for 0.1 % CuO nanofluids prepared at various sonication time

Figure 5 depicts variation of heat transfer coefficient (h) with time, for CuO nanofluid of 0.15% mass concentration prepared with different sonication time of 2,3 and 4hrs respectively. In initial stage of cooling, nanofluid prepared by 4hrs sonication time exhibits best heat transfer co efficient and remains at top among all the preparations. However fluid prepared by 2hrs sonication time exhibits least heat transfer co efficient. From the Figure 6, which depicts variation of heat transfer coefficient (h) with time, for CuO nanofluid of 0.15% mass concentration prepared with different sonication time of 2,3 and 4hrs respectively. It is clear that the behavior of nanofluids prepared by sonication time of 3hrs and 4hrs exhibits same behavior. However increased heat transfer co efficient for 2hrs sonication time prepared fluid noticed in an initial stage of cooling. Figure7 depicts the comparison of the best of heat transfer coefficient vs. time for CuO nanofluids of various concentrations. It can be easily noted from this figure that 0.1% concentration CuO nanofluid prepared with 4 hrs sonication time gives the best among the heat transfer characteristics whereas 0.05% concentration CuO nanofluid with 3 hrs sonication time gives the least. In initial stage of cooling variation can be noticed between fluid prepared by sonication time of 2hrs with 0.2% mass concentration and fluid prepared by sonication time of 4hrs with 0.1% mass concentration, but they exhibits same behavior. The above results give an assorted nature of deterioration and enhancement of heat transfer coefficients on addition of nanoparticles. The above results are in concurrence with the inconsistent nature of heat transfer reported in literature enhancement of heat transfer as found in Khanaferet al. [23], Nnanna et al. [28] and Nnanna and Routhu [29] and deterioration of heat transfer as noticed in the study of Putra et al., [17] and Deng and Wing [21].

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Fig. 5 Variation of heat transfer coefficient with time for 0.15 % CuO nanofluids of various concentrations

Fig. 6 Variation of heat transfer coefficient with time for 0.2 % CuO nanofluids of various concentrations

Fig. 7 Comparison of the best of heat transfer coefficient for CuO nanofluids of various concentrations

Comparison of heat transfer coefficient of CuO nanoparticles of various concentrations at different sonication time Figure 8-10 shows the variation of heat transfer coefficient with time for CuO nanofluid of various mass concentrations prepared at 2, 3 and 4 hours sonication time respectively. The general nature of the figures plotted in the previous section is also noted in these figures. However these plots give an insight into the best heat transfer coefficient at various sonication times which is tabulated as follows:
Table 1:Best heat transfer co efficient.

Sonication time 2 hours 3 hours 4 hours

Mass concentration with best h 0.2% throughout the cooling process 0.05% at the initial stage of cooling and 0.2% at the later stage of cooling 0.1% throughout the cooling process

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Table 1 is suggesting that the best performance is spreading over the spectrum of the nanofluids of all mass concentration under consideration. As discussed in the previous section, the sonication time determines the role of particle-fluid slip and sedimentation which seems to be important in the heat transfer process and requires to be investigated more closely in the future.

Fig. 8 Comparison of heat transfer coefficient of CuO nanoparticles of various concentrations at 2 hours sonication time

Fig. 9 Comparison of heat transfer coefficient of CuO nanoparticles of various concentrations at 3 hours sonication time

Fig. 10 Comparison of heat transfer coefficient ofCuO nanoparticles of various concentrations at 4 hours sonication time

4. Conclusion Fluids with nano size solid particles suspended in them have been given the name nano-fluid which in recent studies has shown tremendous promise as heat transfer fluids.However no study has been reported regarding the effect of nanoparticles during natural convective unsteady state heat transfer analysis. The present study deals with one such aspect of natural convection of nano fluids of a heated vertical cylinder cooled in pure water and nanofluids of two different concentrations. An apparently paradoxical behaviour of heat transfer deterioration was observed in the experimental study. The reason for this effect is unclear and the findings are important due to the fact that nano-fluids are being advocated as alternative heat transfer fluids. The study throws light into this area and indicates the need for more investigations to understand the physical phenomenon completely before using these fluids in practical cooling applications.

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