Local thermal equilibrium analysis of complete phase change process inside porous diffuser using NanoFluids

•A 1D complete phase change process inside porous Diffuser is analysed.•The working fluid is assumed Cu-water nanofluid.•Outcomes of only water and Cu-water are compared.•The beginning and termination of mixture flow strongly affect by solid volume fraction and diffuser shape.•Employing of nanofluid extremely influences the phase change process. This works implements an investigation on two-phase flow inside porous diffuser using Cu/water nanofluid instead of pure water. Interesting has been focused on how the using Cu/water affect the predictions of complete boiling process. Two-phase mixture model (TPMM), based on the assumptions of Local Thermal Equilibrium (LTE), has been converted to implement the actions of combining nano-fluid rather only water. The governing equations are solved by finite volume method. For the purpose of comparison, the solutions of temperature and liquid saturation, obtained employing Cu/water and only water as working fluid, have been displayed for a wide ranges of geometric parameters, operating parameters and properties of porous media to investigate impacts of using nanofluid. The findings illustrated that the adding Cu particle to water has a high influences on the heat diffusivity inside the diffuser as compared to the solutions of only water due to enhancing the axial diffusion. By employing Cu/water, the boiling and condensation fronts are considerably moved to downstream and upstream sections, respectively. The exit temperature is significantly reduced when utilizing Cu/water as compared to the only water solution. The findings of Cu/water show that the volume fraction of nano-fluid, operating conditions, geometric conditions and porous structure properties have large impacts on the locations of liquid and steam fronts. Accordingly, the nano-fluid is supposed as a safety key in the boiling applications since it improves the technique of heat transfer while simulating the complete boiling process.