Effect of saw type corrugated pipe on laminar convective heat transfer by using SiC-water nanofluid : a numerical study

Enhancing the heat transfer rate is highly required to remove excessive heat load from the heat transfer apparatus, which may cause massive damage to the equipment. Thus, increment of heat transfer area is one of the prime solutions for this issue. The increment of heat transfer area can be done by enhancing the pipe wall and incorporating nanoparticles with working fluids because nanoparticles showed much faster heat dispersion due to a vast surface area for heat transfer and increased thermal conductivity. Also, small molecules of nanoparticles are allowed for free movement and thus micro-convection, promoting high thermal conductivity. Higher thermal conductivity is mainly the result of a higher heat transfer rate. Therefore, in this study, a saw-type corrugated tube was considered along with the SiC-water nanofluid as the working fluid to determine the improvement of laminar convective heat transfer in terms of the Nusselt number, heat transfer coefficient, and pressure loss. The result demonstrated that by increasing the Reynolds number, the Nusselt number, heat transfer coefficient, and pressure loss were increased significantly with the enhancement of SiC-water concentration. At a Reynolds number of 1200, the maximum increment of Nusselt number in comparison to the base fluid was 9.15% when the corrugated pipe was considered. Meanwhile, the maximum improvement of heat transfer coefficient for SiC-water nanofluid in comparison to the base fluid was 37.66%.