The Impact of Nanoparticles in Water Coolant on Heat Transfer Rate in Parallel and Counter Flow Heat Exchanger

Abstract

A heat exchanger is a device used to transfer heat between two or more fluids. The fluids can be single or two phases depending on the exchanger type and may be separated by in -direct contact (the two most common kinds of heat exchanger are the shell-and-tube and plate/fin). In this research work double pipe heat exchanger was used to analyze the performance of water coolant for industrial applications. In Heat Exchanger the water coolant temperature increases due to increase in the temperature of oil in the tubes. Therefore, it may decrease the overall efficiency of the equipment resulting from degradation of the lubricant oil. In this regard, it is required some additives to be mixed with water coolant so that to enhance the heat transfer rate of the unit. Due to the excessive heating of the hydraulic oil in the turbine bearings, the material of the bearing found damage and deteriorate. Therefore, the aim of this study was to remove the heat from bearing oil, so that overall efficiency of heating equipment could be increased. In this research work Hydraulic oil was heated at 60⁰C and 70⁰C as per requirements of the industry. The experiments were conducted at both parallel and counter flow directions. Initially, a baseline experiment was carried out between hot oil and water coolant (without additives or nanoparticles). Besides the heat transfer rate between hot oil and water coolant with the additives (CuO and Al₂O₃₎ were observed at 1-3% proportion. It was concluded that the heat transfer rate of CuO was increased more than Al₂O₃ and plain water coolant due to more uniform temperature difference maintained between the inlet and outlet of cold and hot fluids due to the higher thermal conductivity of CuO. The maximum heat transfer rate was found to be 36.6 % at 60℃ and 38% at 70℃ with 3% of CuO additive in water coolant in the counter-flow condition.