Titania-based nanofluid flowing inside a circular tube under the boundary condition of a horizontal uniformly heated wall was investigated numerically for both laminar and turbulent flows. In this work, an innovative numerical method using an Eulerian approach for the two-phase mixture model was used to simulate the flow and convective heat transfer characteristics. The effect of nanoparticle loading and Reynolds number on the flow and heat transfer characteristics was observed. The Reynolds number was 500 and 1200 for laminar flow, while for turbulent flow, the Reynolds number was varied in the range from 4000 to 14,000. A comparison with the established empirical correlations was made. The results clearly showed at the laminar and turbulent flows that the existing nanoparticles provided a considerable enhancement in the convective heat transfer. For laminar flow, the numerical results found that the enhancement in the convective heat transfer coefficient of nanofluids were 4.63, 11.47, and 20.20% for nanoparticle loadings of 0.24, 0.60, and 1.18 vol.%, respectively. On the other hand, for turbulent flow, the corresponding heat transfer increases were 4.04, 10.33, and 21.87%.

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In this study, a numerical simulation has been conducted in order to evaluate the thermal hydraulic performance of a turbulent single-phase flow inside an enhanced tube equipped with a square-cut twisted tape (STT) insert. The classical twisted tape (CTT) insert was also investigated for comparison. The k-ε renormalized group turbulence model has been utilized as the turbulent model. Various twist ratios (y/W) of 2.7, 4.5, and 6.5 were investigated for the Reynolds number range of 8000–18,000, with water as the working fluid. The numerical results indicated that, in comparison with the plain tube (PT), the tube equipped with the STT with the twist ratios of 2.7, 4.5, and 6.5 led to an increase in the values of the Nusselt number and friction factor in the inner tube by 45.4–80.7% and 2.0–3.3 times, respectively; in addition, the highest thermal performance of 1.23 has been obtained. The results further indicated that the tube equipped with the CTT of the same twist ratios improved the Nusselt number and friction factor in the inner tube by 40.3–74.4% and 1.7–3.0 times, respectively, in comparison with the PT; further, the maximum thermal performance of 1.18 was achieved.

A combination of two passive heat transfer enhancement techniques using a microfin structure and nanofluids was investigated numerically. TiO2/water nanofluids flowing inside a square minichannel with a microfin structure (SMM) were observed as a practical application. Increased heat transfer performance was investigated by observing the Nusselt number, friction factor, and performance evaluation criterion (PEC). Velocity and temperature profiles were also demonstrated at a laminar developing flow regime. The SMM used in this work had six microfins (N = 6) and TiO2/water nanofluids with various nanoparticle concentrations of 0.005, 0.01, and 0.1 vol.%. By combining nanofluids as working fluids and SMM as a passive heat transfer enhancement, the maximum PEC value of 1.2 was achieved at Re = 380 with a volume fraction of 0.01 vol.%. It is obvious that compared to water flowing inside the square minichannel microfin, the heat transfer can be increased by using only a nanofluid with a volume fraction of 0.01%. The combination of a microfin and nanofluids as working fluids is strongly recommended due to its excellent performance in terms of heat transfer and economic considerations.

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