Numerical Study of Heat Transfer and Flow Bifurcation of CuO Nanofluid in Sudden Expansion Microchannel Using Two-Phase Model

Abstract

In this paper, laminar forced convection of CuO nanofluid is numerically investigated in sudden expansion microchannel with isotherm walls and different expansion ratios (ER). An Eulerian two-fluid model is considered to simulate the nanofluid flow inside the microchannel and the governing mass, momentum and energy equations for both phases are solved using the finite volume method. Eulerian-Eulerian two-phase model is very efficient because of considering the relative velocity and temperature of the phases and the nanoparticle concentration distribution. In solving the flow equations for both phases, the SIMPLE algorithm is modified for the coupling of the velocity and pressure and the continuity equations for both phases are combined in order to create the pressure correction equations. However, the Eulerian-Eulerian modeling results show higher heat transfer enhancement in comparison to pure water, so that for a 2% copper-water nanofluid, it has been observed a 35% increase of the heat transfer. The heat transfer enhancement increases with increase in Reynolds number and nanoparticle volume concentration, while the pressure drop increases only slightly. An investigation of the expansion ratio of microchannel shows that the average Nusselt number increases with decrease in expansion ratio as well as with increase in Reynolds number. Also, the Bifurcation has been occurred in higher Reynolds number that is different for each expansion ratio of the microchannel.