Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3411–3418

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Ain Shams Engineering Journal

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Numerical investigation of fluid flow and heat transfer of nanofluids in

microchannel with longitudinal fins
Ayoub Abdollahi a, Hussein A. Mohammed b,⇑, Sh.M. Vanaki c, Rajnish N. Sharma a
a
Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Auckland, 20 Symonds Street, Auckland 1010, New Zealand
b
WA School of Mines-Minerals, Energy & Chemical Engineering, Curtin University, 6102 Bentley, Western Australia, Australia
c
School of Chemistry, Physics and Mechanical Engineering, Science and Engineering Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George St, Brisbane, Queensland 4000, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Thermal and hydraulic characteristics of laminar nanofluid flow in square microchannel with longitudi-
Received 26 May 2016 nal inner fins are numerically investigated. The external walls of microchannel are heated at constant
Revised 10 September 2016 heat flux and four rectangular fins are fixed on the internal walls. Four different types of nanofluid are
Accepted 3 May 2017
used as working fluids which are SiO2, Al2O3, CuO and ZnO dispersed in pure water base fluid.
Available online 22 November 2018
Different volume fractions of 1–2% and different nanoparticle diameters of 30–60 nm are employed.
The results show that the SiO2 nanofluid has the highest heat transfer rate among all of four tested
Keywords:
nanofluids. The increase in nanoparticle volume fraction and the decrease in the nanoparticle diameter
Microchannel
Nanoparticle
would increase the Nusselt number value. The friction factor does not change significantly by using nano-
Nanofluid fluid with different volume fractions and different nanoparticle diameters. Moreover, the results indicate
Laminar flow that nanofluid can enhance the performance of microchannel with longitudinal fins.
Thermal field Ó 2018 Ain Shams University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under
Fins the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction
In the last two decades the application of microchannel heat
sink is noted when high heat flux elimination is required in small
devices such as electronic chip, heat exchangers, and spaceships,
etc. Tuckerman and Pease [1] in 1981 introduced the idea of utiliz-
ing microchannel heat sink. Many experimental, analytical and
numerical studies have been done recently in order to improve
the performance of microchannel due to its high heat transfer coef-
ficient, small size and small heated volume. Following this, using
nanofluid as working fluid is a recent development in nanotechnol-
ogy. Nanofluids are fluids with suspended nanoparticles such as
metals and oxides. Fluid pressure does not drop when using nano-
fluid as the nanoparticles stay suspended in the base fluid [2–5].
The concept of microchannel has made a significant innovation
in the use of microchannel as a heat sink dissipation device [6].
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: hussein.mohammed@curtin.edu.au, Hussein.dash@yahoo.com
(H.A. Mohammed).
Peer review under responsibility of Ain Shams University.
Production and hosting by Elsevier
Peng et al. [7–9] experimented with the flow and heat transfer
characteristics of water through rectangular stainless steel
microchannels. The hydraulic diameters of microchannel varied
from 133 mm to 367 mm with aspect ratios from 0.33 to 1. They
found that fluid flow deviates from the values which had been pre-
dicted by classical correlations. The transition heat occurred at
Reynolds numbers of 200–700. Xu et al. [10] experimentally
investigated flow friction for liquid flow in microchannels with
30–344 lm hydraulic diameter and Reynolds numbers ranged
from 20 to 4000. They obtained that conventional behavior of flow
characteristics in microchannels agree with the values predicted
by Navier–Stokes equations. Palm [11] predicted that the utiliza-
tion of microchannel will be enhanced in future due to the high
cooling performance. Lee et al. [12] investigated numerically and
experimentally the heat transfer in rectangular microchannel.
The width of microchannel was 194–534 mm. In order to predict
heat transfer in microchannel, the Navier-Stokes equations were
recommended. The same result was obtained by Qu and Mudawar
[13] when they performed both numerical and experimental study
on microchannel heat sink with dimension of 231 mm (width) and
713 mm (depth). Lee and Garimella [14] investigated experimen-
tally and numerically the laminar fluid flow characteristics in
rectangular microchannels with hydraulic diameter range of
244–974 mm. They reported that conventional theory is useful to
predict flow behavior in the mentioned dimensions.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asej.2017.05.011
2090-4479/Ó 2018 Ain Shams University. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
3412 A. Abdollahi et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3411–3418
Nomenclature
A cross-sectional area, mm2
a fin height, mm
Cp specific heat capacity, J/kg K
Dh hydraulic diameter (4A/P), mm
dp diameter of nanoparticle, nm
f skin friction
H* fin height ratio (2a/W)
H height of the square cross-section, mm
h convective heat transfer coefficient, W/m2 K
k thermal conductivity, W/m K
M molecular weight, g/mol
N Avogadro number
Nu Nusselt number
P wetted perimeter, mm
p pressure, Pa
q" external wall heat flux, W/m2
Re Reynolds number
T temperature, K
tw channel wall thickness, mm
tf fin thickness, mm
u fluid velocity in the x direction, m/s
v fluid velocity in the y direction, m/s
Lee and Garimella [15] studied numerically a three dimensional
laminar thermally developed flow in microchannel. They proposed
a reliable correlation in order to calculate Nusselt number as a
function of axial distance. Fedorov and Viskanta [16] numerically
investigated the three-dimensional conjugate heat transfer in a
microchannel heat sink. They found a negative local heat transfer
at the corners of channel.
The effect of internal fin on flow field and heat transfer in nor-
mal size channels on both experimental and numerical works have
been previously examined by many researchers. Alam and Ghosh-
dastidar [17] investigated numerically fully developed flow
through finned circular tube. The fins were longitudinal with
tapered lateral profiles. They concluded that the heat transfer is
significantly enhanced when using internal fins. Huq et al. [18]
experimentally studied pressure drop and heat transfer of ther-
mally developing flow through the internally finned tubes. They
reported a significant enhancement in heat transfer rate through
the finned tube.
On the other hand, engineers and researchers have been moti-
vated to develop possibilities of using nanofluid especially in
Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) applications since the
advantages of utilizing nanofluids as working fluid are enticing
[19,20]. Chein and Chung [21] experimented with the effect of
CuO-H2O nanofluid on heat transfer performance of trapezoidal
microchannel. They reported that in low flow rate, nanofluid work-
ing fluid has better performance compared to using pure water. Lee
and Mudawar [22] used experimentally Al2O3 nanofluid with
water as base fluid with small concentration in microchannel. They
observed higher heat transfer coefficients in the entrance region of
the microchannel. They concluded that nanofluids are not suitable
in the case of two phase microchannels. Ho et al. [23] examined
experimental forced convective of Al2O3-H2O nanofluid in rectan-
gular shape microchannel. They reported that the heat sink with
nanofluid coolant compared with pure water has higher average
heat transfer coefficient, lower thermal resistance and lower wall
temperature at high pumping power.
Recently Mohammed et al. [24–29] studied numerically the
fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of various nanofluids
with various volume fractions in different MCHS shapes. It was
V velocity, m/s
W width of the square cross-section, mm
w fluid velocity in the z direction, m/s
x, y, z coordinate directions
Z distance from inlet of channel, mm
Greek symbols
j Boltzmann constant
q density, kg/m3
/ volume fraction of nanoparticle, %
l dynamic viscosity, N s/m2
Subscript
av average
eff effective
f fluid
nf nanofluid
np nanoparticle
pw pure water
found that while the concentration of the nanoparticles is
increased, the heat transfer coefficient is increased and the thermal
resistance is decreased. The pressure drop inside microchannels
increases when the volume fraction increases. Furthermore, there
is no improvement in the thermal performance of the microchan-
nel heat sink (MCHS) at the volume fraction 5%, almost the same
result as pure water.
It is obvious from the above literature review that the effects of
using nanofluids flow on heat transfer characteristics and perfor-
mance of microchannel with longitudinal fins seems not to have
been studied in detail previously and this has motivated the cur-
rent study. Moreover, recent research on microchannel involved
conventional fluid and there is no work reported in the open liter-
ature which involved nanofluid in square microchannel with longi-
tudinal fins. The current study numerically examines 3D laminar
forced convective flow in square microchannel with longitudinal
fins utilizing different nanofluids in water base fluid, different vol-
ume fractions and different nanoparticle diameters. Nusselt num-
ber, skin friction factor and performance evaluation criterion for
laminar forced convective in finned microchannel are reported in
order to show the effect of fins and nanofluid on these parameters.
2. Numerical model
2.1. Physical model
The schematic diagram of square microchannel with longitudi-
nal fins is shown in Fig. 1. Both microchannel and fins are made of
aluminum. The microchannel width (W) and height (H) are set to
be 200 mm while the length (L) of microchannel is 120 mm. The
thickness of channel walls (tw) and fin (tf) are 10 mm and 20 mm,
respectively. Fin height ratio H* is considered to be 0.67 since it
has the best performance among all different values of H* [30].
In order to reduce the computational time, a symmetric bound-
ary condition is considered as shown by dashed lines in Fig. 1. The
inlet boundary condition of the microchannel is specified to be
velocity inlet based on Reynolds number (1300) with temperature
of 300 K and the outlet boundary condition of the microchannel is
 A. Abdollahi et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3411–3418 3413

kw r2 T ¼ 0
Reynolds number, Nusselt number, friction factor, and Perfor-
mance evaluation criteria are calculated as follows:
quav Dh
Re ¼ ð6Þ
l

hDh
Nu ¼ ð7Þ
k

2Dh
f ¼ Dp ð8Þ
Lqðuav Þ2

Nuav
Nuav ;pw
Performance evaluation criterion ðPECÞ ¼  13 ð9Þ
f
f pw

where Nuav ;pw and f pw are respectively the average Nusselt number
and friction factor for pure water in microchannel with longitudinal
fins (H* = 0.67).
The applied boundary conditions are given as follows:

Fig. 1. Cross section of square microchannel with longitudinal fins.

defined to be pressure outlet. All outer walls of microchannel are
heated by a constant heat flux of 50 W/cm2. The length of
microchannel, moreover, is enough to reach fully developed flow
hydrodynamically and thermally.
(i) Uniform velocity and temperature profiles at microchannel
inlet.
(ii) Pressure outlet boundary condition with zero gradient at
microchannel outlet.
(iii) No diffusion flux takes place through the symmetry sections.
(iv) Velocity components at microchannel walls are zero.
2.3. Grid testing and code validation

2.2. Governing equations A grid independent test was done using water to find the effect
of mesh size on the results. In order to choose the best grid size,
In order to analyze the effect of nanofluid on fluid flow and heat three sets of hexagonal mesh were made with size of
transfer through square microchannel with longitudinal fins, the 10  10  400, 20  20  400 and 40  40  400. It was detected
following assumptions are considered: (i) the three-dimensional that for three different grid sizes the value of Nusselt number are
fluid flow and heat transfer assumed to be steady- state; (ii) The similar with percentage error of 2%. Hence, in order to shorten
fluid flow is laminar and single phase with constant properties. the computational time, the mesh size of 20  20  400 was
The considered flow is governed by steady-state three- selected.
dimensional form of continuity, momentum and energy equations The code validation was performed based on the geometry and
which can be written as follows: boundary conditions of the work of Foong et al. [30]. They analyzed
Continuity equation: laminar convective heat transfer in a microchannel with
@u @v @w longitudinal fins using water fluid flow. Figs. 2 and 3 shows the
þ þ ¼0 ð1Þ comparison of the present results of average local Nusselt number,
@x @y @z
velocity profile and the fluid velocity across the diagonal of finned
X-momentum equation: microchannel with the results of Foong et al. [30] using
!
@u @u @u 1 @p l @ 2 u @ 2 u @ 2 u
u þv þw ¼ þ þ þ ð2Þ
@x @y @z p @x q @x2 @y2 @z2 35

Y-momentum equation: 30
!
@v @v @ v 1 @p l @ 2 v @ 2 v @ 2 v
u þv þ ¼ þ þ þ ð3Þ 25
@x @y @z p @y q @x2 @y2 @z2
20
Z-momentum equation:
Nu

! 15
@w @w @w 1 @p l @ 2 w @ 2 w @ 2 w
þ þ ¼ þ þ 2 þ 2 ð4Þ
@x @y @z p @z q @x2 @y @z 10

Energy equation for liquid and solid, respectively: 5

  "   2  2 #
2
@T @T @T @u @v @w
qC P u þ v þ ¼ k f r T þ 2l
2
þ þ 0
@x @y @z @x @y @z 0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12
" 2  2  2 # Z(m)
@u @v @u @w @ v @w
þl þ þ þ þ þ ð5Þ
@y @x @z @x @z @y Fig. 2. Comparison of the present work with the results of Foong et al. [30] for
average local Nusselt number in a finned microchannel.
3414 A. Abdollahi et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3411–3418

16 The effective heat capacity [31]:

 
14
q Cp nf
¼ ð1  /ÞðqCp Þf þ /ðqCp Þnp ð11Þ

The effective thermal conductivity (for1%  /  4%) [32]:

12
keff ¼ kstatic þ kBrownian ð12Þ
10 "   #
knp þ 2kf  2/ kf  knp
V (m/s)

8 kstatic ¼ kf     ð12:1Þ
knp þ 2kf þ / kf þ knp
6 sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
KT
kBrownian ¼ 5  10 b/qf Cp;f
4
f ðT; /Þ ð12:2Þ
4
Present work 2qnp dnp

2 Foong et al. where K is Boltzmann constant (1.3807 ⁄ 1023 J/K). Table 1 shows
the values of b for different nanoparticles. Moreover, f(T,/) is calcu-
0 lated as follows [32]:
-100 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100   T 
X coordinate (µm) f ðT; /Þ ¼ 2:8217  102 / þ 3:917  103
T0
 
Fig. 3. Comparison of the present work with the results of Foong et al. [30] for
velocity distribution in the cross-section of microchannel.
þ 3:0669  10 /  3:91123  103
2

Where the effective viscosity (for 1%  /  4%) [32]:

microchannel with H* = 0.67 of fin height ratio. This comparison 1
shows that the present results are in a very good agreement with leff ¼ lf  0:3
ð13Þ
ð1  34:87ðdp=dfÞ  /1:03 Þ
the results obtained by Foong et al. [30].

13
2.4. Numerical parameters and procedures 6M
df ¼ 0:1 ð13:1Þ
Npqfo
The numerical computations were performed by solving the The thermophysical properties of four different nanofluids with
governing equations (Eqs. (1)–(5)) along with the boundary condi- water base fluid are shown in Table 2. In laminar regime, moreover,
tions using finite volume method (FVM) based computational fluid for low volume fraction of nanofluid (less than 2%), the nanofluid
dynamics (CFD) software package, ANSYS FLUENT 16. The SIMPLE flow is considered as Newtonian single phase flow [33].
algorithm and standard discretization are chosen to solve flow field
and pressure discretization, respectively. Momentum and energy
3. Results and discussion
equations are approximated with second order upwind difference
scheme. The solutions are considered to be converged when the
In this section, the effects of different nanofluids type, its vol-
convergence criterion values hit 108 for all variables.
ume fraction and nanoparticle diameter on the thermal and flow
fields on a finned microchannel performance are investigated and
2.5. Thermophysical properties of nanofluids
discussed.
The following equations are used to calculate the thermal prop-
3.1. The effect of different types of nanofluid
erties of nanofluids as working fluid.
Density [31]:
In this section, in order to investigate the effect of different
qnf ¼ ð1  /Þqf þ /qnp ð10Þ types of nanoparticles on thermal and flow fields, four types of
nanofluid (SiO2, Al2O3, CuO and ZnO) with volume fraction of 2%
and particle diameter of 30 nm and pure water were considered.
Table 1 The results of the effect of different types of nanofluid on average
The b values for different particles. local Nusselt number and velocity profile are shown in Figs. 4 and
Type of b Concentration Temperature (K) 5, respectively. It is obvious that SiO2 nanofluid has the maximum
particles (%) value of average local Nusselt number followed by Al2O3, ZnO and
Al2 O3 8:4407ð100£Þ1:077304 [35] 1%  £  10% 298K  £  363 K CuO, respectively. This can be explained as SiO2 has the lowest
CuO 9:881ð100£Þ0:9446 [35] 1%  £  6% 298K  £  363 K thermal conductivity among other nanofluids but higher than pure
SiO2 1:9526ð100£Þ1:4594 [34] 1%  £  10% 298K  £  363 K water, but, as shown in Fig. 5, the SiO2 nanofluid has higher aver-
ZnO 8:4407ð100£Þ1:077304 [35] 1%  £  7% 298K  £  363 K age velocity compared to other tested working fluids. In case of
forced convection, the fluid velocity has an important role on the

Table 2
The thermophysical properties of different nanoparticles and water at T = 300 K [33].

Thermophysical properties Water Al2 O3 CuO SiO2 ZnO

qðmkg3 Þ 998.2 3970 6500 2200 5600

C p ðkgJ KÞ 4182 765 535.6 703 495.2
k (mWK) 0.6 40 20 1.2 13
lðNm2sÞ 0.001003 0 0 0 0
 A. Abdollahi et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3411–3418 3415

70 70
SiO2 Volume Fracon=0.02
Average Local Nusselt number

Volume Fracon=0.015

Average Local Nusselt number

60 60
Al2O3
Volume Fracon=0.01
50 ZnO Volume Fracon=0.00
50
40 CuO
water 40
30
30
20
20
10
10
0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12
Z(m) 0
0 0.05 0.1
Fig. 4. Average local Nusselt number for different nanofluids and water as a Z(m)
function of distance from inlet of the microchannel.
Fig. 6. Average local Nusselt number for SiO2 nanofluid with different volume
fractions as a function of distance from inlet of the microchannel.
16

14 the friction factor of tested nanofluids is very close to the value

of friction factor for pure water which is one of the most important
12
advantages of nanofluid. Therefore, the microchannel with SiO2
10 nanofluid has the highest performance since it has the highest
PEC value among all.
V (m/s)

8
6 3.2. The effect of different nanoparticles volume fractions
4 ZnO
2
0 water with no nanoparticle. SiO2 nanofluid is chosen as working
-100 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20
X coordinate (µm)
Fig. 5. Velocity distribution on one diagonal of microchannel cross-section for
different nanofluids and water.
Nusselt number and it signifies the main reason to give a high Nus-
selt number.
Table 3 lists the pressure drop, average velocity, friction factor,
average Nusselt number (ANN) and PEC for different nanofluids,
respectively. As Table 3 shows, SiO2 has the highest amount of
pressure drop among all other nanofluids and pure water. The
main reason can be clarified by the value of fluid viscosity, velocity
and density. Viscosity plays an important role on the pressure drop
along finned microchannel. Pure water has the lowest pressure
drop due to the lowest viscosity. As illustrated in Fig. 5, and Table3,
the SiO2 nanofluid has the highest velocity due to the lowest den-
sity. Therefore, SiO2 nanofluid shows the highest amount of pres-
sure drop followed by Al2O3, ZnO and CuO. As shown in Table 3,
SiO2
Al2O3
To study the influence of nanoparticles volume fractions on
CuO thermal and flow fields, the range of the nanoparticle volume frac-
Water tion is varied from 0% to 2%. The 0% concentration is related to pure
40 60 80 100 fluid since it had the highest value of PEC among all other tested
working fluids. Fig. 6 shows the average local Nusselt number
along finned microchannel for SiO2 nanofluid using constant
nanoparticle diameter of 30 nm. Fig. 6 indicates that increasing
the nanoparticle volume fractions from 0% to 2% causes an
enhancement in the average local Nusselt number. This is because
of increasing energy exchange rates in fluid from the anarchical
nanoparticle movement [30].
Fig. 7 shows the velocity distribution on one diagonal of
microchannel cross-section for SiO2 nanofluid with different vol-
ume fractions. It indicates that the SiO2 nanofluid with 2% volume
fraction shows the highest velocity among all. Table 4 gives the
pressure drop, average velocity, friction factor, average Nusselt
number and PEC for SiO2 nanofluid with different volume fractions.
As given in Table 4, the pressure drop increases with increasing
volume fraction from 0% to 2%. This can be explained as the viscos-
ity of nanofluid tends to increase with nanoparticle volume frac-
tion enhancement. Therefore, the SiO2 nanofluid with 2% volume
fraction presents the highest pressure drop. The pressure drop,
moreover, drastically increases at higher velocity because of

Table 3
PEC for water and four different nanofluids (Volume fraction = 0.02 and dp = 30 nm).

Nanofluid SiO2 Al2O3 ZnO CuO Water

Dp (Pa) 3,720,553 3,596,030 3,488,512 3,427,051 2,533,376
Vav (m/s) 7.82639 7.564444 7.338272 7.209088 6.536014
f 0.198074 0.198074 0.198073 0.198345 0.197675
fnf/fpw 1.002017 1.002015 1.002012 1.003386 1
ANN 11.97151 10.87232 10.5397 10.37511 9.097279
ANNnf/ANNpw 1.315944 1.195118 1.158555 1.140463 1
PEC 1.305581 1.194316 1.15778 1.139179 1
3416 A. Abdollahi et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3411–3418

16 70
dp= 30 nm
14

Average Local Nusselt number

60 dp= 40 nm
12 dp= 60 nm
50
10
V (m/s)

40
8

6 30

4 Volume Fracon=0.02 20
Volume Fracon=0.015
2 Volume Fracon=0.01 10
Volume Fracon=0.00
0
-100 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100 0
X coordinate (µm) 0 0.05 0.1
Z(m)
Fig. 7. Velocity distribution on one diagonal of microchannel cross-section for SiO2
nanofluid with different volume fractions. Fig. 8. Average local Nusselt number for SiO2 nanofluid 2% (dp = 30, 40, 60 nm) as a
function of distance from inlet of the microchannel.

increasing wall shear stress. As shown in Table 4, for using SiO2

nanofluid, a small increase in friction factor value is observed with 16
increasing the SiO2 nanofluid volume fraction.
Thus, the microchannel with SiO2 nanofluid with the volume 14
fraction of 2% shows better performance in case of PEC since the
12
increment of the friction factor is significantly lower compared to
the achieved average Nusselt number. 10
V (m/s)

3.3. The effect of different nanoparticles diameters 6

dp=30 nm
In this section, the range of nanoparticles diameter employed 4 dp=40 nm
varied from 30 nm to 60 nm. The SiO2 nanofluid was preferred as dp=60 nm
2
working fluid since SiO2 (at constant volume fraction of 2%) had
the highest PEC among all tested nanofluids. The results of the 0
effect of different nanoparticle diameter on average local Nusselt -100 -80 -60 -40 -20 0 20 40 60 80 100
number and flow field are shown in Figs. 8 and 9, correspondingly. X coordinate (µm)
As illustrated in Fig. 8, a small variation in Nusselt number can be
seen for different nanoparticle diameters. The average local Nusselt Fig. 9. Velocity distribution on one diagonal of microchannel cross-section for SiO2
nanofluid 2% (dp = 30, 40, 60 nm).
number of nanofluid enhances with decreasing nanoparticle diam-
eter. This phenomenon is related to Brownian motion and relative
surface area of nanoparticle. The smaller size of the nanoparticle
causes the enhancement of the surface area per unit volume. The Fig. 9 illustrates the velocity distribution on one diagonal of
heat transfer rate is commensurate to the surface area. Therefore, microchannel cross-section for SiO2 nanofluid with different
the increment of effective surface area means the nanoparticles nanoparticle diameters. Fig. 9 indicates that the SiO2 nanofluid with
can transfer higher value of heat to the base fluid. The other reason nanoparticles diameter of 30 nm has the highest value of velocity.
is the mean velocity of the nanoparticles in the base fluid. The Table 5 gives the pressure drop, average velocity, friction factor,
reduction of nanoparticles size causes higher Brownian motion average Nusselt number and PEC for SiO2 nanofluid with different
velocity of the nanoparticles that increases the heat transfer rate. nanoparticle diameters. It indicates that the pressure drop of nano-
In Fig. 8, the SiO2 nanofluid with 30 nm nanoparticle size shows fluid with lower diameter of nanoparticles has the maximum value.
the highest average local Nusselt number and the nanoparticle Pressure drop increases by decreasing nanoparticles diameter since
with 60 nm diameter has the lowest average local Nusselt number. the nanofluid viscosity tends to enhance with reducing the

Table 4
PEC for SiO2 nanofluids with different volume fraction (dp = 30 nm).

Volume fraction (%) 0 1 1.5 2

Dp (Pa) 2,533,376 2,977,273 3,228,829 3,720,553
Vav (m/s) 6.536014 7.048609 7.309075 7.82639
f 0.197675 0.198068 0.198286 0.198074
fnf/fpw 1 1.001987 1.00309 1.002017
ANN 9.097279 10.88319 11.31852 11.97151
ANNn/ANNpw 1 1.196313 1.244166 1.315944
PEC 1 1.195522 1.242887 1.315061
 A. Abdollahi et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3411–3418
Table 5
PEC for SiO2 nanofluids 2% (dp = 30, 40, 60 nm).
dp (nm) Water
Dp (Pa) 2,533,376
Vav (m/s) 6.536014
f 0.197675
fnf/fpw 1 1.002017
ANN 9.097279
ANNnf/ANNpw 1 1.315944
PEC 1 1.315061
nanoparticle diameters. The pressure drop is approximately similar
for nanofluid with nanoparticle of 40 nm and 60 nm and the
nanoparticle with 30 nm diameter has the highest value of pressure
drop. As listed in Table 5, the friction factor values do not consider-
ably change for different nanoparticle diameters. Therefore, the
microchannel with SiO2 nanofluid with the volume fraction of 2%
and nanoparticle diameter of 30 nm has the highest PEC.
4. Conclusions
A three-dimensional numerical simulation of laminar forced
convection heat transfer in microchannel with longitudinal inter-
nal fins was investigated. The current study focused on flow field
and heat transfer enhancement caused by different parameters,
such as different types of nanofluid including SiO2, Al2O3, CuO
and ZnO, nanoparticle volume fraction (0, 1, 1.5 and 2%) and
nanoparticle diameter (30, 40 and 60 nm). The governing equa-
tions were solved and discretised utilizing Finite volume method
(FVM) with the SIMPLE algorithm. It was found that SiO2, Al2O3,
CuO and ZnO nanofluid in water base fluid had better heat transfer
enhancement compared to pure water. The results show that SiO2
nanofluid presents the highest Nusselt number followed by Al2O3,
ZnO, CuO and pure water, respectively. The increase of nanoparti-
cle volume fraction enhanced the average Nusselt number. More-
over, the Nusselt number had a slight increment with decreasing
nanoparticle diameter. In addition, the flow fluid shows that SiO2
nanofluid had the highest pressure drop followed by Al2O3, ZnO,
CuO and pure water, respectively. Following this, increasing in vol-
ume fraction and decreasing nanoparticle size leads to a pressure
drop surge. No considerable effect was detected on friction factor
in the case of using nanofluid compared to pure water. SiO2 nano-
fluid with volume fraction of 2% and nanoparticle diameter of
30 nm had the best performance among other tested nanofluids.
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3,720,553 3,424,222 3,424,223
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3418 A. Abdollahi et al. / Ain Shams Engineering Journal 9 (2018) 3411–3418

[35] Vajjha RS, Das DK. Experimental determination of thermal conductivity of Sh. M. Vanaki is a Ph.D. student in the School of Engi-
three nanofluids and development of new correlations. Int J Heat Mass Transf neering, Queensland University of Technology, Aus-
2009;52(21–22):4675–82. tralia. Currently, he is working on the Nanofluids
Macroscale and Microscale Heat Transfer.

Ayoub Abdollahi is a Ph.D. student in the Department

of Mechanical Engineering, the University of Auckland.
Currently, he is working on the nanofluid flow and heat
transfer in microchannels.

Rajnish N. Sharma is a Senior Lecturer in the Depart-

ment of Mechanical Engineering, the University of
Auckland, specialising in the subject areas of Aerody-
namics, Fluid Dynamics, Heat Transfer, Thermodynam-
ics, and their application. He has been an academic here
since August 2001, and became a permanent member of
Hussein A. Mohammed is currently a research fellow at
staff in 2007. He currently serves as the Academic Head
Curtin University in Australia. He has published on a
of the new Thermofluids Laboratory at Newmarket
wide range of inter-disciplinary issues (numerically and
campus, and, represents the Department on the Faculty
experimentally) in aerodynamics, instrumentation
Equity Committee. He has previously served on many
development and testing, fundamentals and advanced
significant committees of the Department, Faculty and
heat transfer aspects, fluid flow, solar energy, nan-
the University (both at USP and the UOA).
otechnology (nanofluids), MEMS and combustion engi-
neering and science. He has published more than 120
refereed papers in prestigeous international journals,
most of which are ranked Tier 1 and ISI listed journals.