CFD modeling (comparing single and two-phase approaches) on thermal performance of Al2o3/water nanofluid in mini-channel heat sink

CFD modeling of laminar forced convection on Al2O3 nanofluid with size particles equal to 33 nm and particle concentrations of 0.5, 1 and 6 wt.% within 130 < Re < 1600 in mini-channel heat sink is executed by four individual models (single phase, VOF, mixture, Eulerian). Three-dimensional steady-state governing partial differential equations was discretized using finite volume method. Influences of some important parameters such as nanoparticle concentration and Reynolds number on the enhancement of nanofluid heat transfer have been investigated. The difference between the two-phase models results was marginal, and they were more precise by comparison with experimental reference data than single phase model. Besides with regard to the most precise and less CPU usage and run time, mixture model was chosen to obtain a correlation based on dimensionless numbers for the Nusselt number and friction factor estimation.