Numerical investigation of nanofluid convection performance in the fully developed flow regime of the pipe with constant wall temperature

In this work, single-phase dispersion model (SPD) is used to numerically study laminar force convection performance of Al2O3/water nanofluid in the fully developed flow regime of a constant wall temperature pipe, and a new average Nusselt number expression for Al2O3/water nanofluid flow in such a condition is put forward by modifying the classical average Nusselt number formula. In the numerical calculation, two-dimension equation is solved by using finite volume method, dispersion effects causing the increase in thermal conductivity and viscosity of nanofluid have been considered. It is shown that the numerical simulation results are in agreement with experimental data, the deviations are less than 7% in terms of Nusselt number and convective heat transfer coefficient. In addition, the modified average Nusselt number formula can predict heat transfer performance well for Al2O3/water nanofluid laminar flow in a constant wall temperature pipe.