01. Experimental/Computational Fluid Dynamics

Owing to the effects of greenhouse gases, the technological advancement to retard the impact of global warming is the priority of industrial communities. The heat transfer performance can significantly increase via utilization of nanoparticles with fluid, and thereby reduce energy consumption through improved heat exchangers. The objective of this paper is to conduct the experimental study to investigate the thermofluid characteristics of the Al2O3/water nanofluid through microchannels. The heat transfer coefficient characteristics of the Al2O3/water nanofluids over the microchannels are measured at varied Reynolds numbers and heat loads. The measurements are further conducted to elucidate the influences of mass concentration and hydraulic diameter on the thermal and frictional outcomes. The results indicate the increase of average heat transfer coefficient up to 12.4 kW/m2K at a mass concentration of 3.0wt%, showing the similar thermal outcome of Al2O3/water nanofluid reported in open literatures. However, the decline of hydraulic diameter from 1.38 mm to 0.92 mm can intensify the heat transfer and flow resistance by 15.8% and 36.5% in the portion of design impact study. Also, by the assessments of four well-known correlations, Chen and Cheng achieves the most accurate estimation of the Nusselt number of Al2O3/water nanofluid.