Int. J. Nanoparticles, Vol. 5, No.

1, 2012 37

Experimental studies on heat transfer and friction

factor characteristics of Al2O3/water nanofluid under
laminar flow with spiralled rod inserts

S. Suresh*, M. Chandrasekar and

P. Selvakumar
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
National Institute of Technology,
Tiruchirappalli 620015, India
Fax: +91-431-2500133
E-mail: [email protected]
E-mail: [email protected]
E-mail: [email protected]
*Corresponding author

Tom Page
Department of Design and Technology,
Loughborough Design School,
Loughborough University,
Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK
E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: An experimental investigation on the convective heat transfer and

friction factor characteristics in the plain and spiralled rod inserts
(pitch = 15 mm, 30 mm) in a plain tube under laminar flow with constant heat
flux is carried out with Al2O3-water nanofluids. We study the effect of the
inclusion of nanoparticles on heat transfer enhancement, thermal conductivity,
viscosity, and pressure loss in the laminar flow region. For this, we synthesised
Al2O3 nanoparticles by using microwave assisted chemical precipitation
method and we measured size of nanoparticles by using XRD. The average size
of particle is 40.3 nm, and then the nanoparticles dispersed in distilled water to
form stable suspension containing 0.3%, 0.4%, 0.5% volume concentration of
nanoparticles. The experimental results of Nusselt number for 0.5% nanofluid
with spiralled rod inserts under laminar flow showed a maximum of 24%
higher than the plain tube and the isothermal pressure drop of nanofluids with
spiralled rod inserts were about 5% to 15% higher than the plain tube.

Keywords: nanoparticle synthesis; nanofluid; spiralled rod; heat transfer

enhancement; Nusselt number; pressure drop; laminar flow; Al2O3 – water;
pitch ratio; volume concentration.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Suresh, S.,

Chandrasekar, M., Selvakumar, P. and Page, T. (2012) ‘Experimental studies
on heat transfer and friction factor characteristics of Al2O3/water nanofluid
under laminar flow with spiralled rod inserts’, Int. J. Nanoparticles, Vol. 5,
No. 1, pp.37–55.

Copyright © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

38 S. Suresh et al.

Biographical notes: S. Suresh is a Faculty in the Department of Mechanical

Engineering of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India. He is
having a teaching experience of 13 years since his graduation. He obtained his
Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical Engineering in 1997 from Madurai
Kamaraj University, Madurai and Master in Engineering with specialisation
in Energy Engineering in 1999 from Regional Engineering College,
Tiruchirappalli. He received his PhD in 2007 from National Institute of
Technology, Tiruchirappalli. His research interests lie in the areas of thermal
engineering, heat transfer, energy conservation, fluid mechanics, phase change
materials and nanofluids. He is also a member of Institution of Engineers
(India). He has published more than 30 papers in international journals and
conferences.

M. Chandrasekar is a Doctoral student in the Department of Mechanical

Engineering of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India. He is
presently involved in the research on heat transfer enhancement using
nanofluids. He has been a Faculty with a teaching experience of 14 years since
his graduation. He obtained his Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical
Engineering in 1996 from Coimbatore Institute of Technology, Coimbatore and
Master in Engineering with specialisation in Thermal Power Equipment Design
in 1999 from Regional Engineering College, Tiruchirappalli. His research
interests lie in the areas of thermal engineering, heat transfer, energy
conservation, fluid mechanics and nanofluids. He is also a member of
professional bodies like Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) and Indian
Society of Technical Education (ISTE).

P. Selvakumar is a Doctoral student in the Department of Mechanical

Engineering of National Institute of Technology, Tiruchirappalli, India. He is
presently involved in the research on heat transfer enhancement using
nanofluids. He has been a Faculty with a teaching experience of six years since
his graduation. He obtained his Bachelor of Engineering in Mechanical
Engineering in 2001 from Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli
and Master in Engineering with specialisation in Thermal Engineering in 2004
from Anna University, Chennai. His research interests are in the areas of
thermal engineering, heat transfer, computational fluid dynamics, fluid
mechanics and nanofluids.

Tom Page mainly teaches electronic product design and has been working
between the fields of interaction, physical computing and electronic product
design for the last couple of years. His main interests lie in the area of
nanoparticle technology, mathematical modelling and electronic product
design. He has been a consultant for many small and medium sized enterprises
(SMEs) and large-scale manufacturing and service enterprises in the UK, in
engineering design and electronic product design. His work has been widely
published in the form of journal papers, book contributions, refereed
proceedings, refereed conference papers and technical papers.

1 Introduction

Particle-laden fluids are those in which solid particles dispersed in a carrier liquid to a
particular concentration. The particles are generally in the order of micro and nanometre
size, and the carrier liquid commonly used in the laboratory is either water or mineral oil.
The particles are of various types, like metal, ceramic, metal-metal oxide, etc. These
 Experimental studies on heat transfer and friction factor 39

particles tend to increase the thermal conductivity of the fluid by a substantial amount
and hence promoting more amount of heat energy to be transferred. This phenomenon is
known as heat transfer enhancement and these particles-laden fluids have been found to
have better heat transfer properties as solid materials have much higher thermal
conductivities than fluids. It is then a straightforward logic to increase the thermal
conductivity of fluids by adding solids. However, if solid particles of micrometer, even
millimetre magnitudes are added into the base fluids to make slurries, the increase in
thermal conductivity of the slurries is insignificant even at high particle loading.
Meanwhile, large particles cause many troublesome problems like:
a large particles are easy to settle out from the base fluids, especially in low speed
circulation, not only losing the enhancement in thermal conductivity, but forming a
sediment layer at the surface, increasing the thermal resistance and impairing the
heat transfer capacity of the fluids
b the large size of the particles or the agglomerates of these particles causes severe
clogging problems, especially at low circulation rate of fluids or in micro channels
c large particles and the agglomerates in fluid flows carry too much momentum and
kinetic energy, which may cause damage to the surface
d the erosion of the pipelines by the coarse and hard particles increases rapidly when
the speed of the circulation increases
e noticeable conductivity enhancement is based on high particle concentration, which
leads to apparent increase in viscosity and hence, the pressure drop in fluids
(slurries) goes up considerably due to the increase of viscosity.
Due to these disadvantages of the liquid suspension of large particles, the method of
enhancing the thermal conductivity by adding solid particles is not a preferred one until
the emergence of nanofluids. In general, the working fluid such as water, oil, and
ethylene glycol are used for various industrial fields, namely, power generation and air
conditioning. However, these fluids with low thermal conductivity suppress the
development of compact and higher-performance heat exchangers.
The early studies considered suspensions of millimetre or micrometer size particles
which show some enhancements, but it has problem of poor suspension stability,
clogging in systems using mini and or micro channels. Choi (1995) at the Argonne
National Laboratory, USA invented nanometre size suspended particles in a solution and
showed increase of thermal conductivity compared to base fluid. Lee et al. (1999) have
observed the 5% enhancement of Al2O3 and CuO nanofluid thermal conductivity and
estimated by using transient hot wire method. Choi et al. (2001) observed 160%
enhancement in thermal conductivity of 1.0% volume concentration of CNTs in engine
oil. Das et al. (2003) have obtained two to four fold enhancements in thermal
conductivity of nanofluid in the temperature range of 21°C–51°C using Al2O3 nanofluid.
Xuan and Roetzel (2000) considered single phase and dispersion model for the estimation
of heat transfer enhancement of nanofluids. Wen and Ding (2004) observed that Al2O3
nanoparticles when dispersed in water can significantly enhance the convective heat
transfer in the laminar flow regime and the enhancement increases with Reynolds
number, as well as particle concentration. Experiments with Al2O3/water nanofluid in the
laminar flow range of Reynolds number in the range of 700 and 2,050 has been
40 S. Suresh et al.

conducted by Heris et al. (2007) under isothermal wall boundary condition and observed
that enhancement of heat transfer takes place with increase of Peclet number and volume
concentration. However, they have not developed any regression equation applicable to
their range of study. Xuan and Li (2003) conducted experiments with CuO nanofluid
under turbulent flow in a tube and reported higher heat transfer coefficient compared to
base fluid and developed a regression equation valid for the experimental range.
Numerical analysis of laminar flow heat transfer of Al2O3/ethylene glycol and
Al2O3/water nanofluids in tube has been reported by Palm et al. (2004) and Roy et al.
(2004) observed that wall shear stress increases with increase of volume concentration
and Reynolds number. Putra et al. (2003) reported natural convection heat transfer with
Al2O3/water and CuO/water. Pak and Cho (1998) obtained heat transfer enhancement
with Al2O3 and TiO2 nanoparticles in turbulent flow and presented regression equation
which is independent of volume concentration.
The purpose of this experimental investigation is to disclose the thermal fluid flow
transport phenomenon of nanofluid in a circular plain tube and with spiralled rod inserts
in a tube by measuring the pressure drop and the convective heat transfer performance for
various concentrations of Al2O3/water nanofluids under the constant heat flux boundary.

2 Experiments

2.1 Synthesis of nanoparticle and nanofluid

Nanocrystalline alumina (Al2O3) powder has been prepared from an aqueous solution of
aluminium chloride by microwave assisted chemical precipitation method. About 0.1 M
(molar solution) of aluminium chloride was taken (aqueous solution) in a round bottom
flask fitted with a reflux water condenser. The solution was hydrolysed for 20 min and
the resulting solution was neutralised with ammonia solution. The precipitate formed is
washed with distilled water and dried. The schematic diagram for preparation of Al2O3
nanopowder is shown in Figure 1. The X-ray diffraction (XRD) spectra of powder are
shown in Figure 2. The powder XRD was carried out with a Rigaku X-ray diffractometer
by Cu-ka1 radiation in the range of 20°–80°. The average grain size is calculated to be
40.3 nm using Scherrer formula. Nanofluid with a required volume concentration of
0.3%, 0.4% and 0.5% was then prepared by dispersing a specified amount of Al2O3
nanoparticles in water by using an ultrasonic vibrator (Toshiba, India) generating
ultrasonic pulses of 100 W at 36 ± 3 kHz. To get a uniform dispersion and stable
suspension which determine the final properties of nanofluids, the nanofluids are kept
under ultrasonic vibration continuously for 6 h (Lee et al., 2008). No surfactant or pH
changers were used as they may have some influence on the effective thermal
conductivity of nanofluids (Das et al., 2003). The pH of the prepared nanofluid was
measured by a pH metre (Cyber pH-14L) and found to be around 4.8 which is far from
the isoelectric point of 9.2 for alumina nanoparticles (Xie et al., 2008). This ensures the
nanoparticles are well dispersed and the nanofluid is stable because of very large
repulsive forces among the nanoparticles when pH is far from isoelectric point. Thus, the
Al2O3/water nanofluid prepared in the present work was found to be very stable for
several weeks without visually observable sedimentation.
 Experimental studies on heat transfer and friction factor 41

Figure 1 Schematic diagram of preparation of aluminium oxide nanopowder

Precursors –Metal chloride/

Nit ride 0.1 Mol solution
Water out
Hydrolysis

Solut ion is mixed with

Ammonia solu tion Water in

Precipitation

Washed and dried

Powder

Figure 2 XRD spectrum

2.2 Convective experimental setup

The experimental part involves taking temperature readings and pressure drop
measurements of nanoparticle laden fluid flow in a pipe of 4.85 mm diameter and
800 mm length. Initially readings are taken for a plain tube system and in the second
phase readings are taken in an alternate system consisting of a spiralled inserts in a plain
tube and the two sets are compared. From these readings, it is possible to determine the
Nusselt number for any given flow rate and also quantify the amount of heat transfer
increase of the system. The experimental setup for measuring the convective heat transfer
and pressure drop characteristics is shown schematically in Figure 3.
42 S. Suresh et al.

Figure 3 Schematic diagram of the experimental setup

4
3
1
2

9 6

7
8

Notes: 1 = calming section, 2 = test section, 3 = temperature scanner, 4 = differential

pressure transducer, 5 = riser section, 6 = cooling section, 7 = measuring jar,
8 = reservoir, 9 = peristaltic pump, 10 = reflux line
The test loop consists of a pump, calming section, heated test section, cooling section, a
collecting station and a reservoir. The pump used in this work was of peristaltic type
(RH-P120l, Ravel Hiteks Pvt. Ltd.) in which the flow rate was controlled by the
rotational speed. The pump could deliver a maximum flow rate of 2.55 litres per minute.
Nanofluids were driven by the pump from the reservoir to flow through the test loop. A
four litre capacity stainless steel vessel equipped by drain valve is used as fluid reservoir.
In order to control the fluid flow rate, a reflux line with a valve was used. Calming
section of straight copper tube 800 mm long, 4.85 mm inner diameter, and 6.3 mm outer
diameter is used to eliminate the entrance effect and to ensure fully developed flow in the
test section. A straight copper tube with 1,200 mm length, 4.85 mm inner diameter, and
6.3 mm outer diameter was used as the test section. The test section is first wound with
sun mica to isolate it electrically. Then, ceramic beads coated electrical SWG nichrome
heating wire giving a maximum power of 300 W is wound over it. Over the electrical
winding, thick insulation consisting of layers of ceramic fibre, asbestos rope, glass wool
and another layer of asbestos rope at the outer surface is provided to prevent the radial
heat loss. The test section is isolated thermally from its upstream and downstream
sections by plastic bushings to minimise the heat loss resulting from axial heat
conduction. The terminals of the nichrome wire are attached to the auto-transformer, by
which the heat flux can be varied by varying the voltage. Six calibrated RTD PT 100 type
temperature sensors with 0.1°C accuracy are placed in thermo wells mounted on the test
section at axial positions in mm of 110 (T3), 210 (T4), 410 (T5), 610 (T6), 760 (T7) and
870 (T8) from the inlet of the test section to measure the wall temperature distribution.
The inlet and outlet temperatures, T1 and T2, respectively, were measured by two RTD
PT 100 type temperature sensors immersed in the mixing chambers provided at inlet and
exit. A differential pressure transducer (SGM srl, Italy) able to read up to 1 cm of water
 Experimental studies on heat transfer and friction factor 43

having a measurement range between 2 mbar to 1 bar is mounted across the test section
to measure the pressure drop. The fluid after passing through the heater section flows
through a riser section and then through the cooling unit which is an air cooled heat
exchanger and is collected in the reservoir. A three-way valve is provided in the flow
pipe connecting the cooler section and reservoir for flow rate measurements and cleaning
the system between successive experimental runs. The flow rates were measured by
collecting the fluid in the collecting station for a period of time with the help of a precise
measuring jar and stop watch. Figure 4 shows the schematic of spiralled rod insert
fabricated using 1 mm diameter stainless steel wire with a pin of 1.5 mm height at a pitch
length of 15 mm and 30 mm. Figure 5 shows the photographs of spiralled rods of pitch
15 mm and 30 mm used in the experiments.

Figure 4 Schematic of spiralled rod inserts, (a) P = 15 mm (b) P = 30 mm

(a)

(b)

Figure 5 Photographs of spiralled rod inserts, (a) P= 15 mm (b) P = 30 mm (see online version
for colours)

2.3 Uncertainty analysis

All the quantities that are measured to estimate the Nusselt number and the friction factor
are subjected to uncertainties due to the errors in the measurement. Hence, uncertainty
analysis is carried out using Coleman and Steele (1989) method and ANSI/ASME
standards (1986) considering the measurement errors whereas the possible errors in the
fluid properties are not included. For this purpose, quantities like the tube diameter (d),
length of the test section (L), mass flow rate (m), pressure drop (ΔP), voltage (V), current
(I), wall temperature (Tw) and fluid average temperature (Tf) are measured and the
probable errors in each of them are calculated to estimate the uncertainties associated
with experimental data of friction factor and Nusselt number using the following
equations:
44 S. Suresh et al.

0.5
Δ Re ⎡⎛ Δm ⎞ ⎛ Δd ⎞ ⎤
2 2
= ⎢⎜ ⎟ ⎜+ ⎟ ⎥ (1)
Re ⎢⎣⎝ m ⎠ ⎝ d ⎠ ⎥⎦

0.5
Δf ⎡⎛ Δ(Δp ) ⎞ ⎛ ΔL ⎞ ⎛ Δd ⎞ ⎛ Δ Re ⎞ ⎤
2 2 2 2
= ⎢⎜ ⎟ ⎜+ ⎟ ⎜+ 3 ⎟ ⎜+ 2 ⎟ ⎥ (2)
f ⎢⎝ Δp ⎠ ⎝ L ⎠ ⎝ d ⎠ ⎝ Re ⎠ ⎥
⎣ ⎦
0.5
⎡ 2 2⎤
ΔNu ⎢⎛ (ΔV ) ⎞ ⎛ ΔI ⎞ ⎛ Δd ⎞ ⎛ ΔTw ⎞ ⎛ ΔT f ⎞
2 2 2
= + + +⎜ ⎟ +⎜ ⎟ ⎥ (3)
Nu ⎢⎝⎜ V ⎠⎟ ⎝⎜ I ⎠⎟ ⎜⎝ d ⎟⎠ ⎝ Tw ⎠ ⎜⎝ T f ⎟
⎠
⎥
⎣ ⎦
The calculations indicated that the uncertainties involved in the estimations are ± 3.6%
and ± 2.89% for friction factor and Nusselt number, respectively.

3 Data reduction

3.1 Thermophysical properties of nanofluids

The physical and thermal properties such as density, viscosity, specific heat and thermal
conductivity of the nanofluid are calculated using different formulae presented in the
literature. These formulas are outlined below.

3.1.1 Density
The ratio of density of the nanofluid to that of base fluid is calculated according to Pak
and Cho’s (1998) equation as:
ρ nf
= 1 + kρφ (4)
ρ

⎛ρ ⎞
where k ρ = ⎜ s − 1⎟ .
⎝ ρ ⎠

3.1.2 Specific heat

From Xuan and Roetzel’s (2000) equation the ratio of specific heat of nanofluid to that of
base fluid is given as:
c p , nf 1 + k cφ
= (5)
cp 1 + kρφ

⎛ ρ s c p,s ⎞
where kc = ⎜ − 1⎟ .
⎜ ρcp ⎟
⎝ ⎠
 Experimental studies on heat transfer and friction factor 45

3.1.3 Viscosity
Einstein (1956) equation for the effective viscosity of a fluid containing spherical particle
in volume concentrations less than 5% is given by:
μ nf
= 1 + kμ φ (6)
μ
where kμ = 2.5.

3.1.4 Thermal conductivity

Maxwell (1881) model was the first model developed to determine the effective electrical
or thermal conductivity of liquid-solid suspensions. This model is applicable to
statistically homogeneous and low volume concentration liquid-solid suspensions with
randomly dispersed, uniformly sized and non interacting spherical particles. The Maxwell
equation is:
knf k s + 2k + 2φ ( k s − k )
= (7)
k k s + 2k − φ ( k s − k )

If the thermal conductivity of the particles is much higher than that of the liquid, then
from the conduction point of view, for very small volume concentration φ, thermal
conductivity ratio can be written as:
knf
= 1 + kk φ (8)
k
where kk = 3.

3.2 Heat transfer calculation

The local heat transfer performance was defined in terms of the Nusselt number (Nu) and
heat transfer coefficient (h) as given below.
Using the wall and ambient temperature measurements, maximum heat loss to the
surroundings was found to be around 4% of the total heat supplied during the test runs.
Hence, the actual heat flux q″ is calculated as 0.96 VI.
q ′′
h= (9)
( w − Tf
T )
hd
Nu = (10)
k

3.3 Pressure drop calculation

The pressure drop across the test section was measured using a differential pressure
transducer under isothermal flow conditions. It is used to calculate the friction factor
using the following equation:
46 S. Suresh et al.

ΔP d
f = (11)
⎛ ρv ⎞ L
2
⎜⎜ ⎟⎟
⎝ 2 ⎠
For nanofluids, the thermo-physical properties calculated using equation (4) to
equation (7) were used.

4 Results and discussion

4.1 Validation of the experimental system

Initially, experiments are conducted with distilled water which forms the basis for
comparison of results with nanofluids as well as validation of the experimental apparatus.
Figure 6 shows that the comparison of the experimental data with the well-known shah
equation (14) for laminar flow under constant heat flux boundary conditions is in
reasonable agreement:

1
⎛ d ⎞3 ⎛ d⎞
Nu = 1.953 ⎜ Re pr ⎟ for ⎜ Re pr ⎟ ≥ 33.33 (12)
⎝ x ⎠ ⎝ x⎠

⎛ D⎞ D
Nu = 4.364 + 0.0722 ⎜ Re Pr ⎟ for Re Pr < 33.33 (13)
⎝ x⎠ x

Figure 6 Data verification of plain tube Nusselt number data

 Experimental studies on heat transfer and friction factor 47

Figure 7 shows the variation of friction factor with Reynolds number (laminar flow)
under isothermal condition which indicates that it follows the Hagen Poissulle equation.
The experimental conditions used in this study are:
1 the Reynolds number of the nanofluid varies in the approximate range of 800–2,300
2 the volume concentrations of the nanofluids are 0.3%, 0.4% and 0.5%
3 the geometries are plain tube and tube with spiralled rod inserts.
64
f = (14)
Re

Figure 7 Data verification of plain tube friction factor data

4.2 Convective heat transfer performances

The Nusselt numbers are calculated from the measured values of mean wall temperature
and bulk mean temperature, and the actual heat flux. The measurements for the base fluid
and every nanofluid were conducted three times and the average values are reported in
this article. The repeatability of the measurements was within ± 3%. The summary of
experimental conditions is presented in Table 1.
Table 1 Summary of experimental conditions

Sl. no. Experimental parameter Range

1 Reynolds number 900–2,300
2 Flow rate 0.002713–0.007236 kg/s
3 Heat flux 50–60 Watts
4 Temperature 30–45°C
48 S. Suresh et al.

Figure 8 shows the variation of Nusselt number with Reynolds number in the laminar
flow range for distilled water and Al2O3/water nanofluids of volume concentration 0.3%,
0.4% and 0.5%. It is clear that the Nusselt number of Al2O3/water nanofluid increases
gradually with the increase in both the Reynolds number and volume concentration. It is
also evident that the trend of rate of increase of Nusselt number with Reynolds number of
Al2O3/water nanofluids is similar to that of distilled water in plain tube. The Nusselt
number in the fully developed region were measured and found to increase by about 7%
when the volume concentration is 0.3% compared with distilled water in a plain tube, and
the Nusselt number increased by about 18% when 0.3% nanofluid is used with spiralled
rod inserts compared with distilled water in a plain tube. The Nusselt number in the fully
developed region were measured and found to increase by about 13% when the volume
concentration is 0.4% compared with distilled water in a plain tube and Nusselt number
increased by about 23% when 0.4% nanofluid is used with spiralled rod inserts compared
with distilled water in a plain tube as shown in Figure 9. Similarly, the increase in the
Nusselt number was observed to be around 17% when nanofluid with 0.5% volume
concentration is used compared with distilled water in a plain tube while the
enhancement in Nusselt number is about 24% when nanofluid with 0.5% volume
concentration is used with spiralled rod inserts in plain tube compared with distilled
water in a plain tube as given in Figure 10. Furthermore, it is seen from Figure 8 to
Figure 10, at all volume concentrations, the effect of two different pin lengths of 15 and
30 mm on the heat transfer enhancement is not significant. This also reveals that the fluid
flow pattern with the spiralled rods is not affected and hence ensures laminar flow in
tube. In addition, it is learnt that the pin lengths considered in the present experimental
investigation needs further reduction and optimisation to cause any impact on heat
transfer performances.

Figure 8 Variation of Nusselt number for water and nanofluid (0.3%) in plain tube and with
spiralled rod inserts
 Experimental studies on heat transfer and friction factor 49

Figure 9 Variation of Nusselt number for water and nanofluid (0.4%) in plain tube and with
spiralled rod inserts

Figure 10 Variation of Nusselt number of water and nanofluid (0.5%) in plain tube and with
spiralled rod inserts

The experimental results clearly show that the nanoparticles suspended in water increases
the Nusselt number even for a very low volume concentration of 0.3%. The reasons for
such increases in Nusselt number may be due to mixing effects of particles near the wall,
thermal conductivity enhancement, Brownian motion of particles, particle shape, particle
migration and re-arrangement, reduction of boundary layer thickness and delay in
boundary layer development as claimed by previous research works. The use of spiralled
50 S. Suresh et al.

rod inserts results in further increase in Nusselt numbers at all Reynolds numbers in
laminar regime. Compared to spiralled rod inserts with water, spiralled rod inserts with
nanofluid gives better heat transfer characteristics. The results clearly show that these
enhancements in Nusselt numbers are more when compared to the Nusselt number
obtained using plain tube with nanofluid. The difference of enhancement in Nusselt
numbers with and without spiral rod inserts presumably occurred because the mechanism
of heat transfer enhancement may be different for the two flow conditions. The reasons
for increase in the energy exchange rates in the fluid with spiralled rod can be attributed
to three reasons:
1 the pins act as triggers and promoters of turbulence
2 secondary flow develops as the flow field is spiralled inside the annulus
3 the breaking of the boundary layer.

4.3 Pressure drop characteristics

The pressure drop characteristics are depicted in Figure 11 to Figure 13 for volume
concentrations 0.3%, 0.4% and 0.5% respectively. It can be observed that the friction
factors of the nanofluid agree well with those of water data under the same Reynolds
number. This is because the extremely small nanoparticles in the base liquid do not cause
the change in the flow behaviour of the fluid. This means that the nanofluid will not
cause a penalty drop in pressure and there is no need for additional pump power. The
effects of the spiralled rod inserts on pressure drop are mainly due to the increase of the
disturbance in the laminar sublayer of the boundary layer.

Figure 11 Comparison of friction factor for water and nanofluid (0.3%) in plain tube and with
spiralled rod inserts
 Experimental studies on heat transfer and friction factor 51

Figure 12 Comparison of friction factor for water and nanofluid (0.4%) in plain tube and with
spiralled rod inserts

Figure 13 Comparison of friction factor for water and nanofluid (0.5%) in plain tube and with
spiralled rod inserts
52 S. Suresh et al.

Figure 14 Comparison of experimental and predicted values of Nusselt number

Figure 15 Comparison of experimental and predicted values of friction factor

0.14

0.12
Predicted friction factor

0.1

0.08

0.06

0.04

0.02

0
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12

Experimental friction factor

4.4 Correlations for Nusselt number and friction factor

Using regression analysis, the following correlations are proposed for the prediction of
Nusselt number and friction factor data for Al2O3/water nanofluids with spiralled tube
inserts. Figure 14 and Figure 15 shows the comparison of the predicted and experimental
values of Nusselt number and friction factor respectively which indicates that the
correlations proposed predicts the values within ± 15%.
 Experimental studies on heat transfer and friction factor 53

−0.0524
⎛ p⎞
Nu = 0.002858 (Re)0.5816
nf (Pr) 2.576
nf (1 + φ )12.898 ⎜ 1 + ⎟ (15)
⎝ d ⎠
−0.021
−0.98732 ⎛ p⎞
f = 65.737 (Re) nf (1 + φ )32.673 ⎜ 1 + ⎟ (16)
⎝ d⎠

5 Conclusions

The understanding of the fundamentals of heat transfer and wall friction is prime
importance for developing nanofluids for a wide range of heat transfer application.
Hence, experimental investigations on convective heat transfer and pressure drop
characteristics of Al2O3/water nanofluid was carried out in the fully developed laminar
region of pipe flow with constant heat flux. Al2O3 nanoparticles of 40.3 nm size were
synthesised by chemical precipitation method. Then, Al2O3/water nanofluid with a
volume concentration of 0.3, 0.4 and 0.5% was prepared by dispersing a specified
amount of Al2O3 nanoparticles in distilled water.
The results are summarised as follows:
a The maximum increase in the Nusselt number was observed to be around 17% when
nanofluid with 0.5% volume concentration is used compared with distilled water in a
plain tube while the maximum enhancement in Nusselt number is about 24% when
nanofluid with 0.5% volume concentration is used with spiralled tube.
b The pressure drop study indicates that the extremely small volume concentration of
nanoparticles in the base liquid do not cause the change in the flow behaviour of the
fluid. This means that the nanofluid will not cause a penalty drop in pressure and
there is no need for additional pump power. The effects of the spiralled rod inserts
on pressure drop are mainly due to the increase of the disturbance in the laminar
sublayer of the boundary layer.

References
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Nomenclature
A Cross-sectional area, m2
Cp Specific heat, J/kg K
d Tube diameter, m
f Friction factor
h Heat transfer coefficient, W/m2 K
k Thermal conductivity, W/m K
L Length of the test section, m
Nu Nusselt number
p Pitch
P Perimeter, m
Pr Prandtl number
q″ Heat flux, W/m2
Re Reynolds number
T Temperature, K
v Velocity, m/s
x Axial distance from the tube entrance, m
 Experimental studies on heat transfer and friction factor 55

Nomenclature (continued)
Greek symbols
φ Volume concentration
ρ Density, kg/m3
μ Viscosity, kg/ms

Subscripts
in Inlet
f Fluid
nf Nanofluid
s Solid phase
w Tube wall