Forced Convection With Micro-Porous Channels and Nanofluid: Experimental and Numerical Study

This paper will investigate the heat transfer enhancement potential of micro-porous channels and nanofluid concentrations. The test blocks are two and three channels, that have 10 and 20 PPI foam metal inserts. The working fluids used are nanofluid with 0.6% alumina and distilled water. There are three flow rates used for the experiment, 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 USGPM. The maximum average Nusselt number is 135.5, thus having the best rate removal of thermal energy. The pressure drop is an important result because it indicates how much pumping power is required. A lower pressure drop requires less power, which reduces operating costs. The lowest pressure drop is 0.97. Another observation, the temperature distribution has optimal results for the cases with nanofluid with 0.6% alumina and three-channels at a flow rate of 0.3 USGPM. Finally, the experimental and numerical studies are in good agreement with an average relative error of 3.57%.