Numerical investigation of natural convection heat transfer of nano-fluids in a micro-channel

Abstract

An enhanced cell-centered finite-volume procedure has been presented for solving the natural convection of the laminar Al O /Water nanofluid flow in a Γ shaped micro-channel in the slip flow region, including the effects of velocity slip and temperature jump at the wall, which are the main characteristics of flow in the slip flow region. In provided FORTRAN code, an explicit fourth-order Runge–Kutta integration algorithm has been applied to find the steady state solutions. Also an artificial compressibility technique has been to couple the continuity to the momentum equations. The Grashof numbers from 10 to 10 have been considered. Results show that decreasing the mean diameters of nanoparticles, increases the Nusselt number. Increasing the mean nanoparticle volume fraction increases the Nusselt number. Also by increasing the Knudsen number, the Nusselt number decreases.

Keywords: velocity slip; temperature jump; Knudsen number; nanoparticle.