Numerical Investigation of some Flow and Heat Transfer Problems Related to Nanofluids

Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to present the numerical simulation of some flow and heat transfer problems related to nanofluids. Nanofluids are promising fluids for flow and heat transfer enhancement due to their thermal physical properties especially anomalously high thermal conductivity. The exceptional structures of the nanofluids, for examples, dispersion of nanoparticles volume fraction, shape factor, thermophoresis phenomenon, Brownian motion, improvement in thermal conductivity have been addressed numerically for flow and heat transfer characteristics. A similarity transformation is used to convert the governing Navier-Stokes equations into a set of nonlinear fourth order ordinary differential equations system. Two famous numerical methods, finite difference method, and shooting method have been applied to solve the ordinary differential equations. We have studied the flow and thermal properties not only the Newtonian nanofluids but also the non-Newtonian nanofluid flow through orthogonally moving porous disks. We have also examined the nanofluids with different types and shapes of the nanoparticles through a permeable channel keeping the Reynolds number small. The effects of the governing parameters on different aspects of the problems are discussed through tables and figures.