Theoretical and Numerical Study on Buongiorno’s Model with a Couette Flow of a Nanofluid in a Channel with an Embedded Cavity

Abstract

In the present paper, the fluid flow and heat transfer of a nanofluid are numerically investigated. More specifically, reference is made to a nanofluid, described by means of Buongiorno’s model, subjected to Couette flow. The considered domain consists of a channel that displays a cavity shortly after the inlet section. The transport model for the nanofluid, that is the mass conservation, momentum, and nanoparticles equation, is written in a dimensionless form and solved by employing the software package Comsol Multiphysics. Many ideas emerged from this work: the visualization of the velocity stream function, the dimensionless temperature, and nanoparticle concentration fields are provided, as a function of the governing parameters: Reynolds, Peclet, Lewis, Brownian diffusivity number, and thermophoretic diffusivity number. Concerning the nanofluid typical effects, the thermophoretic diffusion seems to affect the solution much more than the Brownian diffusion. The Nusselt number on the upper wall is calculated as well, and the results show that it proves to be, in most of the considered cases, an increasing function of the Reynolds number. Moreover, concerning the Nusselt number, the Brownian diffusion effects are shown to be negligible.

Numerical Investigation of the Magnetohydrodynamic Mixed Convection inside an Extended Curved Duct in the Presence of a Nanofluid of Different Metallic Oxides Nanoparticles

“…It seems clear that the thermal and hydrodynamic states are not influenced by the nature of the nanoparticles except for a relative increase in the velocity and a certain widening of the 0.2 isotherm in the case of the suspension of CuO nanoparticles in pure water. Indeed, the nanometric suspension does not strongly influence the hydrodynamic state due to the low concentrations and small diameters [33]. On the other hand, the metallic nature relatively affects the thermo-physical properties of the nanofluid.…”

“…In this regard, numerical and experimental investigations on these nanofluids have been carried out to enlarge the understanding on the heat transfer rate improvement in different applications [22,23]. Moreover, the addition of nanoparticles marks its positive effect in different processes, in the case of natural convection [24,25], in forced and mixed convection in several industrial applications such as stirred tanks [26,27], cavities [28][29][30][31] and downward-facing straight ducts [32,33].…”

Numerical study of the Thermo-hydrodynamic behavior of a non-Newtonian nanofluid in a backward facing step

“…To enhance convective heat transfer, a novel approach has emerged, which involves the introduction of nanoparticles into the base fluid. In recent studies, researchers have conducted several investigations to demonstrate the efficacy of utilizing nanoparticles in base fluids [6][7]. Selimefendigil et al [8] examined the impact of nanoparticles' volume fraction, inlet oscillation frequency, and Reynolds number on fluid flow and thermal transfer characteristics.…”

Influence of Nanoparticles and Magnetic Field on the Laminar Forced Convection in a Duct Containing an Elastic Fin

“…In the case of general fluid flow in channels, several studies have been conducted in the literature based on computational fluid dynamics in the presence of different complex geometric shapes and different types of fluids including nanofluid. Indeed, the geometry of channels with an enclosed cavity has been investigated in, [10], [11], with reference to Couette flow, underlining the effects of thermophoresis and Brownian diffusion. In particular, in, [11], MHD effects are considered as well.…”