Investigation of turbulent convective heat transfer of TiO2 /water nanofluid in circular tube

Turbulent heat transfer behavior of titanium dioxide/water nanofluid in a circular pipe is investigated experimentally. In this article, a new correlation of the Nusselt number is presented using the results of experiments on titanium dioxide nanoparticles dispersed in water where the volume fraction of nanoparticles in base fluid is less than 0.25%. The experimental measurements were carried out in the fully developed turbulent regime for various particle volumetric concentrations. Results indicated that addition of small amounts of nanoparticles to the base fluid augmented heat transfer remarkably. Increasing the volume fraction of nanoparticles in the range studied in this work did not show much effect on heat transfer enhancement. Experimental results are then compared with existing correlations for nanofluid convective heat transfer coefficient in turbulent regime.