The response of nano-ceramic doped fluids in heat convection models: A characteristics-based numerical approach

In this paper, forced, free, and mixed convections in incompressible flow were studied numerically. Nano-sized Al2O3, TiO2, MgO, and ZnO ceramics with water were considered as nano-fluids. Simulations were carried out for cavity flow with different boundary conditions and aspect ratios, as well as flow over stationary and rotating cylinders. The mean Nusselt number ((Nu) ̅) and friction factor for cavity flow and (Nu) ̅ for flow over a cylinder were compared for different nano-fluids. A new code was developed in FORTRAN 95 for numerical simulations. A fifth-order Runge-Kutta method for time discretization and a characteristic-based scheme for convective terms were used in this code. The averaging scheme on the secondary cells is used to obtain viscous fluxes. Primary results are validated with other researcher's outputs. Results showed that MgO-water and ZnO-water had maximum and minimum heat transfer rates, respectively. Moreover, maximum and minimum shear stresses were recorded for the Al2O3-water and TiO2-water, respectively. Using nanofluid increases the heat transfer rate between 15 and 37 percent depending on the Richardson number and selected nano-particles.