Experimental investigation of nanofluid concentration and material type effect on pool boiling

In recent years, many researches have investigated nanofluids pool boiling and reported some contradictory results. In this study, the pool boiling heat transfer of water- alumina and TiO2-water nanofluids at saturated temperature was investigated experimentally. The experiments were conducted to investigate the impact of concentration and type of nanofluid on the pool boiling heat transfer of brass surface. Water- alumina and TiO2-water nanofluids with volumetric concentration of 0.0025-1% and 0.0025, 0.01, 0.25 % was used, respectively. An experimental setup with a cylindrical heated test section made of brass and surface roughness of 0.2µm was designed and fabricated. The experimental results showed that, the heat transfer decreases as the nanoparticles added into the pure water base fluid. At a constant heat flux, the heat transfer coefficient decreases as the alumina volumetric concentration increments from 0.0025 to 0.01% and then increases for further addition from 0.01 to 1%. The TiO2-water nanofluids performance with respect to the water-alumina nanofluids was not very promising. That means, the boiling heat transfer decreases while the boiling surface temperature increase at a constant heat flux.