Thermal Performance of Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger Using PG/Water and Al2O3 Nanofluid

This study investigates experimentally the thermal performance of propylene glycol/ water with a concentration of (10/90) % and Al 2 O 3 /water nanofluid with a volume concentration of (0.1, 0.4, 0.8, 1.5, and 2.5) percentage under turbulent flow inside a horizontal shell and tube heat exchanger. The results indicate that the convective heat transfer coefficient of the nanofluid is higher than the base PG/water for the same inlet tempera- ture and mass flow rates. The heat transfer of the nanofluid increases with the increase in mass flow rate as well as the Al 2 O 3 nanofluid volume concentration. Results also indicate that the increase in the concentration of the particles causes an increase in the viscosity which leads to an increase in friction factor. The effect of Peclet number, Reynolds number, Nusselt number, and Stanton number has been investigated. Those dimensionless number values change with the change in the working fluid density, Prandtl number, and volume concentration of the suspended particles.