heat transfer in porous medium with reference to nanofluids

Abstract

Nanofluids are a new class of heat transfer fluids which contain a conventional fluid and nanoparticles. The use of additives is a technique applied to enhance the heat transfer performance of conventional fluids. The thermal conductivity of ordinary heat transfer fluids is not adequate to meet the current cooling rate requirements. Nanofluids are known to increase the thermal conductivity and convective heat transfer performance of the conventional fluids. This interesting feature may offer unprecedented potential in cooling applications. The enhancement of heat transfer characteristics will therefore upgrade the efficiency of heat transfer devices used in many engineering processes. newline Literature survey suggests that the heat transfer performance in isotropic/anisotropic porous medium can be improved by changing flow geometries or modifying thermo-physical properties of conventional fluids. So, in the thesis the analysis has been carried out to investigate the flow and heat/mass transfer performance of conventional and nanofluid flows. Convective heat transfer flow situations in porous medium are modeled mathematically in different flow geometries like vertical plate, stretching sheet, curved stretching surface and horizontal channel. The modeled system is solved numerically/analytically. The results are analysed graphically and are validated against the published works. newline newline