Investigation on Heat Transfer and Pressure Drop of Copper-Water Nanofluid Flow in Plain and Perforated Channels

This article reports an experimental study on copper-water nanofluid flow inside plain and perforated channels. The effects of flow rate and nanoparticle concentration on the heat transfer and pressure drop are studied. It is found that the perforated channel has a remarkable heat transfer enhancement of 24.6%. Furthermore, by using the copper-water nanofluid instead of the base fluid, the heat transfer coefficient as well as pressure drop are increased for both plain and perforated channels. A noticeable thermal performance factor of 1.34 is obtained for the simultaneous utilization of both the heat transfer enhancement techniques considered in this article.