Project Overview
Heat exchangers are widely used in many engineering applications, for example, in automotive
industries, chemical industry, environment engineering, waste heat recovery, air conditioning,
refrigeration, power production, and food industry. Hence, increasing heat exchanger
efficiency has a great advantages and major beneficial to the community. One way to enhance
the overall heat transfer coefficient in heat exchangers is by mixing additives to the liquids.
Thermal conductivity of the mixed fluid plays an important role in such enhancement since it
improves the energy transfer between the working fluid and the heated surface.
Applications of nanotechnology in classical thermal designs present nanofluid (NF) as a new
class of fluids to increase the rate of heat transfer. Since conventional HT fluids including
water, oil, and Ethylene Glycol (EG) show relatively poor characteristics in transferring
energy, an innovative method to improve the thermal conductivity of certain fluid can be
obtained by suspending Nano-sized particles with high thermal conductivity in the base fluid
with low thermal conductivity. In recent years, extensive research has proven that nanofluids
are superior as a heat transfer agent over conventional fluid.
Nanofluids are formed by dispersing solid particles, fibers, or tubes of 1 to 100 nm size in
conventional HT fluids. NFs have remarkable characteristics associated such as high heat
transfer rate, low fluctuation ability through passages, and thermal homogeneity. In this view,
NFs are nowadays extensively demanded in electronics and automotive industries.
Consequently, further study on HT characteristics of NF suspensions becomes essential.
Project Objectives
This study is an attempt to address the performance and efficiency of shell and tube
heat exchanger using Nano-particles. The study has the following objectives:
- Design of an experimental setup to perform study.
- Perform the experiment to investigate the impact of adding Nano fluid to the
performance of the heat exchangers.
- Optimize the results by comparing the experimental outcome with the theoretical
result.
- Provide recommendations to enhance the performance of shell and tube heat
exchanger.
Presentation