Numerical investigation of laminar thermal-hydraulic performance of Al2O3-water nanofluids in offset strip fins channel

Using the single-phase based numerical approach, this paper studies the three-dimensional laminar flow and heat transfer behavior of Al2O3-water nanofluids in an offset strip fins channel. Parametric variations are analyzed for explaining the influences of different nanoparticle volume fraction (0%-4%) and Reynolds number (500-1000). The numerical results indicate that both the heat transfer and pressure loss of offset strip fins channel are enhanced significantly with the increases of nanoparticle volume fraction and Reynolds number. At Reynolds number of 1000, the average heat transfer coefficient can be improved by 26.69% when adding 4% volume fraction of Al2O3 nanoparticles in the base fluid. Besides, the Nusselt number of Al2O3-water nanofluids is higher than that of the base fluid at various Reynolds number only when the volume fraction of Al2O3 nanoparticle is more than 2%. Moreover, it is also demonstrated that when the heat transfer rate remains constant, Al2O3-water nanofluids with 1% nanoparticle volume fraction has the most obvious advantage due to the reduction of pumping power.