Study and analysis of thermal performance of miniature cooling system using single phase ferrofluid

Abstract

The objective of the study is to design and analyze the performance of miniature cooling system using single phase ferrofluid. The fluid was allowed to flow through a closed loop under the effect of external magnetic field generated by a permanent magnet as per thermo-magnetic convection principle. Preliminary experiments were initially conducted on different loop shapes to check the functionality of the ferrofluid based cooling system. Thereafter, numerical investigations were performed using COMSOL Multi Physics 5.4 for analyzing the effect of strength of magnetic field on the flow followed by an optimization study performed using RSM technique to find the relative influence of geometrical parameters and strength of magnetic field on the performance of the system. Experimental setup was designed and developed to determine the thermal performance of the system and also to validate the numerical findings. The effect of strength of magnet field on the performance of the developed system was also evaluated experimentally by comparing the temperature profile of the fluid at varying strength of magnetic field generated by permanent magnet. It was found that higher magnetic field strength had resulted in lower temperature, thus exhibit the synergy between the magnetic field and temperature of the system. In addition, the effect of base fluid viz. kerosene and water based ferrofluid on the performance of the system was also evaluated experimentally. The experimental rig was also coupled with a desktop personal computer to examine the heat transfer potential and effectiveness of ferrofluid based cooling system and it was found to be successful in maintaining the safe temperature limit of the system. newline