Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis of Slip Flow and Heat Transfer at the Entrance Region of a Circular Pipe

In the era of sustainable development goals (SDGs), energy efficient heat transfer systems are a must. Convective heat transfer within circular pipes is an important field of research on a rarely addressed limitation of fluid flows. Vacuum solar tubes is one of many applications that could benefit from the existence of nanoparticles, Al2O3, for example, to enhance the heating of air or water steam. The current research investigates the impacts of the Reynolds number (Re), Prandtl number (Pr), Knudsen number (Kn), aspect ratio (x/Dh), and volume fraction of Al2O3 nanoparticles (phi) on the Nusselt number (Nu) under constant wall heat flux conditions. An axisymmetric computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of the nanofluid flowing at the entrance region of a circular pipe was conducted under a slip flow at steady-state developing laminar conditions using the Ansys-Fluent 2018 software package. A mesh sensitivity analysis was conducted, and a proper number of mesh elements was selected. The results showed that an increasing Re and/or phi would result in an increasing Nu. The dependance of Nu on Kn was strong due to the high slip values and temperature jump. An increasing x/Dh ratio resulted in reduced Nu values. The major impact was due to Kn, which caused a reduction of up to 40% in the Nu value due to slip conditions. However, there was an enhancement of 2.5% in the heat transfer due to the addition of nanoparticles, which was found at Re = 250, Kn = 0.1, and phi = 0.1 (Pr = 0.729). Finally, Nuavg, Nux, U/Um, and ReCf were corelated with Kn, Pr, Re, and x/Dh with proper coefficient of determination (R2) values.