Experimental Analysis of Heat Transfer and Friction Factor in Plate Heat Exchanger with Different Orientations Using Al2O3 Nanofluids

Experimental investigations have been done to find out the heat transfer characteristics and friction factor of water based Al2O3 nanofluids as a coolant in brazed plate heat exchangers. In most of the studies plate heat exchangers are used in horizontal or vertical conditions. The base plate of the plate heat exchanger was kept inclined at (0, 30, 60, 90). The experimentation has been carried out with two different concentration of the nanofluids (0.1 and 0.2 v/v%). It was observed that the heat transfer characteristics improves with an increase in Reynolds number. It has been shown that nanofluids in a plate heat exchanger have a maximum of 34% heat transfer rate over the base fluid. It has been observed that from horizontal to vertical orientation heat transfer rate decreases with increase in Reynolds number. The average heat transfer coefficient has been found to reduce by 10-15% when the angle of inclination of base plate of heat exchanger i from horizontal is 30. doi: 10.5829/idosi.ije.2016.29.10a.16