Investigating the effect of various nanoparticle and base liquid types on the nanofluids heat and fluid flow in a microchannel

In this paper, heat transfer and pressure drop of different nanofluid types in a two-dimensional microchannel is investigated numerically. To do this, an Eulerian-Eulerian two-phase model is used for nanofluid simulation and the governing equations are solved using a finite volume method. Nine different nanoparticles and three different base liquid types (water, ethylene glycol and engine oil) are considered. Heat transfer and pressure drop of different nanofluid types are compared at Re = 100 and 1% volume concentration for different nanoparticles and at constant inlet velocity for different base liquids. Numerical results show an almost equal pressure drop for all the nanoparticles dispersed in water, while, the heat transfer coefficient is highest for water-diamond and is the lowest for water-SiO2 nanofluids. Also, the pressure drop for water-based nanofluid is very lower than the others and the heat transfer coefficient is the highest for water-based nanofluids.