Numerical investigation of laminar flow and heat transfer in a channel using combined nanofluids and novel longitudinal vortex generators

Enhancement of heat transfer in plate-fin heat exchangers can be obtained using vortex generators (VG). The three-dimensional laminar flow of water/Al2O3 nanofluid with different nanoparticle volume fractions in a channel with longitudinal vortex generators is numerically simulated. Two novel forms of modified delta winglet VG pairs (MDWP1, MDWP2) are introduced by adding and subtracting a part of the quadrant profile to the delta winglet VG profile. Simulation is carried out for the classic delta winglet pair (DWP) and MDWPs. Performance of heat transfer and pressure drop is compared as well as the overall performance analysis of channel is conducted for all three forms of VGs and two flow arrangement types, common flow up (CFU) and common flow down (CFD). Analytical expressions from the literature are used to check the validity of the model. Governing equations of laminar fluid flow and heat transfer are solved based on the finite-element method. The range of Reynolds number is from 100 to 500. Results show that in the range of the present study, using nanofluid increases about 20% of the heat transfer coefficient and 18% of pressure drop compared to pure water. As results confirm in all of the cases, the heat transfer coefficient increases using VG. The MDWP2 leads to the highest pressure drop and heat transfer between the three VGs types. It can produce up to 9% higher heat transfer coefficient in Re = 100 and 20% of higher pressure drop for CFD flow arrangement. The overall performance of the CFD arrangement is higher than CFU for the studied cases relatively. And the values of performance in a channel with DWP are greater than MDWP1 and MDWP2, which is due to the lower pressure drop of DWP.