Free convection enhancement in an annulus between horizontal confocal elliptical cylinders using hybrid nanofluids

Abstract

In the present paper, natural convection in an annulus between two confocal elliptic cylinders filled with a Cu-Al2O3/water hybrid nanofluid is investigated numerically. The inner cylinder is heated at a constant surface temperature while the outer wall is isothermally cooled. The basic equations are formulated in elliptic coordinates and developed in terms of the vorticity-stream function formulation using the dimensionless form for 2D, laminar and incompressible flow under steady-state condition. The governing equations are discretized using the finite volume method and solved by an in-house FORTRAN code. Numerical simulations are performed for various volume fractions of nanoparticles (0 ≤ ϕ ≤ 0.12) and Rayleigh numbers (103 ≤ Ra ≤ 3 × 105). The eccentricity of the inner and outer ellipses and the angle of orientation are fixed at e1 = 0.9, e2 = 0.6 and γ = 0° respectively. It is found that employing a Cu-Al2O3/water hybrid nanofluid is more efficient in heat transfer rate compared to the similar Al2O3/water nanofluid.