Simulation of Natural Convection Heat Transfer Enhancement by Nanoparticles in an Open-Enclosure Using Lattice Boltzmann Method

Abstract

A numerical analysis is performed to investigate the laminar, free convection flow in an Open Enclosure Using Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) in the presence of Carbon nanotube and Cu nanoparticles. The problem is studied for different volume fractions of nanoparticles, and aspect ratio of the cavity for various Rayligh numbers. The volume fraction of added nanoparticles to water (as base fluid) is lower than 1% to make dilute suspensions. The study presents a numerical treatment based on LBM to model convection heat transfer of Carbon nanotube based nanofluids. Results show that adding a low value of Carbon nanotube to the base fluid led to significant enhancement of convection rate. Results show that adding nanoparticles to the base fluid enhances the rate of natural convection in a cavity. Make a comparison between Carbon nanotube and Cu-nanoparticles shows that the Carbon nanotube-nano- particle has better performance to enhance convection rate at comparison with Cu- nanoparticles.