THERMAL ANALYSIS OF LAMINAR WATER FLOW OVER A BACKWARD FACING CHANNEL WITH CARBON NANOPARTICLES

Abstract

In the last few years, the thermo-hydraulic simulation of nanofluid flow bifurcation phenomena has become of great interest to researchers and a useful tool in many engineering applications. FVM has been employed in this article to numerically explore the laminar water flow over a backward facing channel with or without carbon nanoparticles (CN). The problem formulated in this paper has been solved by considering the effects of nanoparticle weight percentages (𝑤%), such as 0.00, 0.12, and 0.25 for different Reynolds number (𝑅𝑒). Nusselt number distribution (𝑁𝑢(𝑥)), coefficient of skin friction (𝐶𝑓), characteristics of pressure drop (Δ𝑝), velocity contours, static temperature, pumping power (𝑃𝑝) and thermal resistance factor (𝑅) have been investigated to know the behavior of thermo-hydraulic flow bifurcation phenomena. The present study shows that the surface temperature and coefficient of heat transfer can be reduced due to the effect of 𝑅𝑒 or w%. For different w%, it has been found that in the rise in the values of 𝑅𝑒 causes the increase of vortex length and as a result velocity gradient and Δ𝑝 arises. Furthermore, it has also been studied that the enhancement of 𝑅𝑒 causes the increaseof 𝑃𝑝 and Δ𝑝.