International Journal of Thermal Sciences 66 (2013) 82e90

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International Journal of Thermal Sciences

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Parametric study of overall heat transfer coefcient of CuO/water

nanouids in a car radiator
M. Naraki a, S.M. Peyghambarzadeh a, *, S.H. Hashemabadi b, Y. Vermahmoudi a
a
Department of Chemical Engineering, Mahshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mahshahr, Iran
b
CFD Research Laboratory, Department of Chemical Engineering, Iran University of Science and Technology, Narmak, Tehran 16846, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this research, the overall heat transfer coefcient of CuO/water nanouids is investigated experi-
Received 23 May 2012 mentally under laminar ow regime (100
Re
1000) in a car radiator. The experimental system is
Received in revised form quite similar to cars cooling system. The nanouids in all the experiments have been stabilized with
26 November 2012
variation of pH and use of suitable surfactant. The results show that the overall heat transfer coefcient
Accepted 27 November 2012
Available online 2 January 2013
with nanouid is more than the base uid. The overall heat transfer coefcient increases with the
enhancement in the nanouid concentration from 0 to 0.4 vol.%. Conversely, the overall heat transfer
coefcient decreases with increasing the nanouid inlet temperature from 50 to 80  C. The imple-
Keywords:
Nanouid
mentation of nanouid increases the overall heat transfer coefcient up to 8% at nanouid concentration
Overall heat transfer coefcient of 0.4 vol.% in comparison with the base uid. In addition, the results are statistically analyzed using
CuO Taguchi method by implementing Qualitek-4 software. The maximum value of the overall heat transfer
Radiator coefcient with nanouid, effect of each operating parameter on the overall heat transfer coefcient and
Experimental design the optimum values of each parameter are determined.
Taguchi method 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Zeinali et al. [5] presented an experiment in circular tube in

Nowadays high prices of energy motivate industries to apply
energy saving methods as much as possible in their facilities. Heat
transfer enhancement techniques are one of the most important
tools to save energy in different processes. Use of solid particles in
conventional uids, because of their higher thermal conductivity,
has been considered for decades to enhance heat transfer. But in
practice, problems like fouling, sedimentation and increased pres-
sure drop reduce the interest of industries to this heat transfer
technique. In recent years, signicant advances in nanomaterials
technology has made it possible to overcome these problems by
producing desirable particles in nanometer size ranges. Nano-
particle suspensions in uids make a new innovative category of
uids, called nanouids. This kind of uids are now of great interest
not only for modifying heat transfer performance of uids, but also
for improving other different characteristics such as mass transfer
and rheological properties of uids [1e4]. According to the nano-
uids advantages for heat transfer, many studies have been done in
this eld that we referred to a number of them.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: peyghambarzadeh@gmail.com (S.M. Peyghambarzadeh).
laminar ow of alumina-water nanouid under different concen-
trations of nanoparticles and concluded augmentation of heat
transfer coefcient of nanouid with increase of nanoparticle
concentration. They also obtained greater heat transfer coefcient
of nanouid in comparison with that of distilled water base uid at
a constant Peclet number. Duangthongsuk and Wongwises [6] re-
ported an experimental study on forced convective heat transfer of
a nanouid consisting of water and 0.2 vol.% TiO2 nanoparticles in
a horizontal double-tube counter ow heat exchanger under
turbulent ow condition. Their results show that the heat transfer
coefcient of the nanouid increases with an increase in the mass
ow rate of the hot water and nanouid and increases with
a decrease in the nanouid temperature. It was found that
convective heat transfer coefcient of nanouid is slightly higher
than that of the base liquid by about 6e11%. Kim et al. [7] investi-
gated the effect of nanouids on the performances of convective
heat transfer coefcient of a circular straight tube having laminar
and turbulent ow with constant heat ux. Authors have found
that the convective heat transfer coefcient of alumina nanouids
is improved in comparison to base uid by 15% and 20% in laminar
and turbulent ow, respectively. Rea et al. [8] studied the convec-
tive heat transfer coefcient of alumina/water and zirconia/water
nanouids in a ow loop with a vertical heated tube. The heat
transfer coefcients in the entrance region and in the fully

1290-0729/$ e see front matter 2012 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijthermalsci.2012.11.013
 M. Naraki et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 66 (2013) 82e90
developed region were found to increase by 17% and 27%, respec-
tively, for alumina/water nanouid at 6 vol.% with respect to pure
water. The zirconia/water nanouid heat transfer coefcient
enhanced approximately 2% in the entrance region and 3% in the
fully developed region at 1.32 vol.%. Farajollahi et al. [9] measured
the heat transfer characteristics of g-Al2O3/water and TiO2/water
nanouids in a shell and tube heat exchanger under turbulent ow
condition. According to their report, the maximum enhancement of
the overall heat transfer coefcient of g-Al2O3/water nanouids
was approximately 20% which occurred at 0.5% volume concen-
tration and Peclet number about 50,000. At this Peclet number, the
enhancements of the overall heat transfer coefcient at 0.3%, 0.75%,
1%, and 2% nanoparticle volume concentrations were about 14%,
16%, 15%, and 9%, respectively. For TiO2/water nanouids the
maximum enhancement was observed at 0.3% particle volume
concentration. Fotukian and Esfahany [10] experimentally studied
convective heat transfer of dilute CuO/water nanouid inside
a circular tube. They used nanouids with nanoparticles volume
fractions less than 0.3%. The heat transfer coefcient increased
about 25% compared with pure water. Xie et al. [11] demonstrated
that using Al2O3, ZnO, TiO2, and MgO nanouid with a mixture of
55 vol.% distilled water and 45 vol.% ethylene glycol as the base uid
in laminar ow inside a circular copper tube with constant wall
temperature could enhance the convective heat transfer. MgO,
Al2O3, and ZnO nanouids exhibited superior enhancements of
heat transfer coefcient, with the highest enhancement up to 252%
at a Reynolds number of 1000 for MgO nanouid. Leong et al. [12]
investigated the performance of Cu/EG nanouids in an automotive
car radiator. They revealed that in the nanouid-based coolants an
overall heat transfer coefcient of 164 W/m2 K can be achieved for
2 vol.% Cu/EG nanouid compared with 142 W/m2 K for the base
uid. Peyghambarzadeh et al. [13] investigated the forced convec-
tive heat transfer of Al2O3/water nanouid in an automobile radi-
ator. They concluded that the heat transfer enhancement was about
45% compared with pure water at the concentration of 1 vol.%. In
other work, Peyghambarzadeh et al. [14] measured forced
convective heat transfer coefcient of Al2O3/mixture of water and
EG in a car radiator. They reported that in the best conditions, the
heat transfer enhancement of about 40% compared with the base
uids has been recorded. Zamzamian et al. [15] investigated
experimentally the forced convective heat transfer coefcient in
Al2O3/EG and CuO/EG nanouids in a double pipe and plate heat
exchangers under turbulent ow. Their ndings indicated consid-
erable enhancement in convective heat transfer coefcient of the
nanouids as compared with the base uid, ranging from 2% to 50%.
Moreover, the results indicated that the convective heat transfer
coefcient of nanouid increases with enhancing nanoparticles
concentration and nanouid temperature. Leong et al. [16] revealed
the convective heat transfer coefcients and the overall heat
transfer coefcients of copper/water nanouid were higher than
that of base uid in a shell and tube heat recovery exchanger. They
reported that about 16.9% enhancement was recorded for ethylene
glycol with 1% copper nanoparticles compared with base uid.
Saeedinia et al. [17] reported that CuO nanoparticles suspended in
base oil increase the heat transfer coefcient even for a very low
particle concentration of 0.2 wt.%. The maximum heat transfer
coefcient enhancement of 12.7% is obtained for 2 wt.% nanouid at
highest Reynolds number compared with that of base oil. Sundar
et al. [18] evaluated experimentally the convective heat transfer
coefcient of Fe3O4 nanouid for ow in a circular tube at the range
of 3000 < Re < 22,000 and the volume concentration range of
0 < C < 0.6%. Nanouid heat transfer was higher compared with
water and increased with volume concentration. The heat transfer
coefcient was enhanced by 30.96% at 0.6% volume concentration
compared with the ow of water at similar operating conditions.
83
In the literature, the tube-side heat transfer coefcients of
different types of nanouids are usually reported which need the
temperature at the tube wall to be measured. The wall temperature
measurement involves operational difculties and has some
inherent errors which may result in inaccurate heat transfer coef-
cient. Since the tube wall thickness is very small (especially in the
case of the car radiator), installing thermocouples inside the wall is
almost impossible. Therefore, measurement of wall temperature is
very hard to perform and authors usually follow some calibration
procedure to revise their wall temperature. As a result, in this
research, overall heat transfer coefcient is measured in a car
radiator which does not need the wall temperature measurement.
In addition, the experimental results have been statistically
analyzed using Taguchi method by implementing Qualitek-4
software.
2. Nanouid preparation and stabilization
Preparation of a stabilized nanouid is of great importance in
heat transfer applications of nanouids. Poorly prepared nano-
uids will render biphasic heat transfer (i.e. solideliquid). Another
challenge is posed by nanoparticle aggregation which creates
larger particles (in micrometer order), thus eliminating the nano-
related discussions. Furthermore, particle instability results in
particle fouling in reservoir, pipes, pumps and other equipment of
thermal cycle, all of which are considered undesirable factors in
our experiment. The copper oxide nanoparticles used in this study
are approximately spherical with the diameter of about 60 nm.
Some other properties of the nanoparticle are shown in Table 1.
The nanouid has been stabilized with variations of pH and using
SDS (Sodium Dodecyl Sulfonate) surfactant. For stabilization of
nanouid, the pH of suspension was changed to obtain the
optimum value (the pH in which the suspension is more stable)
using NaOH 1 M solution. At the mentioned pH, nanouid samples
were made in different concentrations of surfactant. According
to the previous studies to nd out the optimal pH, samples with
pH of 6.2, 8.2, 9.14, 10.1, 11 and 12.1 were prepared. The sample
with pH 10.1 showed more stability than the others. At the
optimum pH (pH 10.1), samples with different concentrations of
0.04, 0.08, 0.1, 0.2, 0.3 and 0.4 wt.% of SDS surfactant were
prepared. As shown in Fig. 1, the sample with concentration of
0.2 wt.% SDS surfactant and at pH 10.1 had the lowest nano-
particle sedimentation and highest stability after 60 h in
a stationary state.
3. Experimental setup
As shown in Fig. 2, the schematic of experimental system used
in this research includes ow lines, a reservoir tank, two heaters,
a centrifugal pump, ow meter, a forced draft fan, an air ow
channel, a temperature controller, four thermocouples and a cross
ow heat exchanger. The test section is a cross ow heat
exchanger (an automobile radiator) which was installed inside the
air ow channel and its conguration is the louvered n-and-tube
Table 1
Some characteristics of copper oxide nanoparticle.
Copper oxide (CuO) nanopowder
Appearance Black powder
Purity 98%
Grain size (nm) 60 nm
Specic surface area (m2/g) 80
Actual density (gr/cm3) 6.4
Appearance density (gr/cm3) 0.79
84 M. Naraki et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 66 (2013) 82e90

Fig. 1. Effect of pH and surfactant concentration on the stability of CuO/water nanouid.

type. Nanouid passes through the 34 vertical tubes with
stadium-shaped cross section. The ns and the tubes are made
with aluminum. The size and dimensions of the radiator is shown
in Table 2. For cooling the liquid, a forced draft fan (Techno Pars
1400 rpm) which is capable of adjusting the air ow speed from
low to high, was installed close and face to face to the radiator at
the beginning of the air ow channel and consequently air and
water have indirect cross ow contact and there is heat exchange
between hot water owing in the tube-side and air across the
tube bundle. The inlet air temperature was about 35  C  0.2  C in
the whole experiments. The pump gives a constant ow rate of
0.6 m3/h, the ow rate to the test section is regulated by appro-
priate adjusting of a globe valve on the recycle line. The working
uid lls 35% of the reservoir tank whose total volume is
approximately 20 l (height of 30 cm and diameter of 30 cm). The
total volume of the circulating liquid is constant in all the
experiments. Five layer insulated tubes (Isopipe 0.75 in diameter)
have been used as connecting lines and covered with glass wool
to reduce heat loss to the surrounding. A ow meter (Technical
Group LZM-15Z Type) was used to control and manipulate the
liquid ow rate with the precision of 0.006 m3/h. For heating the
working uid, two electrical heaters (6000 W) and a temperature
controller were used to vary the temperature between 40 and
80  C. Four RTDs (Pt-100U) were implemented on the ow line to
record air ow and radiator uid inlet and outlet temperatures.
The temperatures from the thermocouples were measured by four
digital multimeters, SU-105PRR, SAMWON ENG, with an accuracy
of 0.1  C.
3.1. Uncertainty analysis
Uncertainty analysis is carried out by calculating the error of the
measurements. The uncertainty range of Reynolds number comes
from the errors in the measurement of volumetric ow rate and
hydraulic diameter of the tubes and the uncertainty of overall heat
transfer coefcient refers to the errors in the measurements of
volumetric ow rate, hydraulic diameter, and all the temperatures.
According to standard uncertainty analysis, the measurement
uncertainty in liquid side Re number is 5.2% and for the overall
heat transfer coefcient is 15.1%. Furthermore, to check the
reproducibility of the experiments, some runs were repeated later
which proved to have excellent repeatability.

Fig. 2. Schematic of the experimental set up.

 M. Naraki et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 66 (2013) 82e90 85

Table 2 Velagapudi et al. [20] presented a correlation for the viscosity of

Geometrical characteristics of the radiator. CuO/water nanouids as follows:
Description  
1
Fin type Rufed mnf A B (4a)
Fin thickness (cm) 0.08 T
Hydraulic diameter, Dh (cm) 0.3911
Frontal air side dimensions (m) 0.330  0.384 (height  width)
Number of tubes 34 A 2058742 158574 1078:3 (4b)
Heat exchanger depth (cm) 2.2
Internal tubes area (m2) 0.5049
External nned area (m2) 3.7268 B 107:1242 53:5484 2:8715 (4c)
External total area (m2) 4.1055
where A and B are second order polynomial functions of the
particle volumetric concentration 4. This correlation was based on
volumetric concentration of 0
4
0.06. T is temperature in K.
4. Estimation of nanouid physical properties

By assuming that the nanoparticles are well dispersed within 5. Calculation of heat transfer coefcient
the base uid, i.e. the particle concentration can be considered
uniform throughout the system; the effective thermophysical In these experiments, the nanouid owing inside the tube
properties of the mixtures can be evaluated using some classical transfers heat to the outside air owing in the air ow channel. The
formulas as usually used for two phase ow. The following corre- air-side and the tube-side heat transfer rates can be calculated as:
lation has been used to predict nanouid density at different
 
temperatures and concentrations [12e14]: _ a Cp;a Ta;o  Ta;i
Qa m (5)

rnf 4rp 1  4rbf (1)


_ nf Cp;nf Tnf;i  Tnf;o
Qnf m (6)
The specic heat of the nanouid can be calculated by using
energy balance, given by Eq. (2) [12e14]: where Qa and Qnf are the heat transfer rates at the air and nanouid
ows, respectively. The arithmetic average of the heat transfer
1  4rbf Cp;bf 4rp Cp;p rate is:
Cp;nf (2)
rnf

Qave 0:5 Qa Qnf (7)
In the above equations, the subscripts p, bf and nf refer to
the particles, base uid, and nanouid respectively. 4 is volume The performance of the heat exchangers is analyzed by the
fraction of the nanoparticle added to the base uid. conventional -NTU technique and the effectiveness, , is dened as:
Koo and Kleinstreuer [19] developed a thermal conductivity
model, which is a two-term function. The rst term is called the Qave
 
 (8)
static part and the second term is due to the Brownian motion. The _ p
mC min
Tnf ;i  Ta;i
second term takes into account the effect of particle size, particle
volumetric concentration, temperature and properties of base uid, The relationship of the effectiveness, the number of transfer unit
as well as nanoparticles subjected to Brownian motion. The effec- (NTU), and the minimum heat capacity ow rate mC _ p min , at the
tive thermal conductivity of a nanouid is given by Eq. (3a). The air side could be [21]:
term f(T,4) in Eq. (3a) is a function of temperature and particle
volume concentration given by Eq. (3b) and the correlation for 1 h i
1  e1e
NTU

b (fraction of the liquid volume which travels with a particle) is *

(9)
C
given by Eq. (3c) for CuO nanouid.

 UA
NTU (10)
kp 2kbf  24 kbf  kp _ P min
mC
knf
 kbf 5
kp 2kbf 4 kbf  kp  
_ p min
mC
s *
C   (11)
4 kT _ p max
mC
 10 b4rbf Cp;bf f T; 4 (3a)
rp dp
Using Eqs. (9) and (10) the experimental overall heat transfer
coefcient, UA, could be evaluated.

 T 
The overall heat transfer coefcient can also be estimated from
f T; 4 2:8217  102 4 3:917  103  3:0669 the following overall resistances [22] for the comparison with the
T0
 experimental data:
 102 4 3:91123  103
1 1 d 1
(3b) ; (12)
UA ho ho Ao kt At hi Ai

b 9:88110040:9446 (3c) where h is heat transfer coefcient, A is surface area, kt is thermal

conductivity of tube wall, d is wall thickness, ho is surface efciency
and the subscripts o, i, t denote the air-side, the tube-side and the
at 298 K
T
363 K. To is reference temperature 273.15 K and dP is tube wall, respectively. The tube-side heat transfer coefcient can
nanoparticle diameter in m. be calculated by Sider-Tate [23] correlation for the laminar ow
86 M. Naraki et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 66 (2013) 82e90

through pipes, or equally Dehghandokht et al. [24] correlation

suggested for the ow in the compact heat exchanger at
550
Re
1850. These two correlations are demonstrated
respectively as Eqs. (13) and (14):
   
ReD Pr 1=3 m 0:14
Nu 1:86 (13)
L=Dh ms

Nu 0:951  Re0:173
D  Pr1=3 (14)

where ReD is tube-side Reynolds number based on tube hydraulic

diameter, Pr is Prandtl number. The surface efciency in Eq. (12) can
be calculated as:

Af
ho 1  1  h (15)
Ao

Ao Af Ab (16)

Ao is the total surface area of the nned tube, Af is surface area of the Fig. 3. Comparison between the measured overall heat transfer coefcient and the
n, Ab is surface area of the bare tube. The n efciency, h, can be predicted values for distilled water.
approximated from the Schmidt approximation [25] as follows:
ow rate increases with nanoparticle concentration compared with
tanhml
h ; (17) the base uid. The maximum enhancement of the overall heat
ml
transfer coefcient of CuO/water nanouids occurs at 0.4 vol.%
where concentration of nanoparticle which is approximately 8%
comparing with the base uid. The enhancement of the overall heat
s
2ho transfer coefcient at the concentration of 0.15 vol.% of the nano-
m ; (18) particle is about 6%.
kf ft
These increases in the overall heat transfer coefcient with
nanouid can be explained by the increase of heat transfer ef-
where kf is the thermal conductivity of the n, l is the n length and
ciency due to the enhancement of thermal conductivity, the acti-
ft is the n thickness. The air-side heat transfer coefcient can be
vation of convective heat transfer or the thinning of thermal
calculated from Vithayasai et al. [22] correlation suggested for the
boundary layer. In addition, there will be one important mecha-
radiator as:
nism for this enhancement on thermal conductivity of nanouid in
the piping ow. That is the non-uniform particle concentration in
Nua 10:145  LnRea  46:081  Pra0:33 (19)
the cross-section of the tube. Ding and Wen [26] investigated that
the particle migration by shear rate gradient, viscosity gradient, and
Brownian motion causes non-uniformity in particle concentration
6. Results and discussions

6.1. Distilled water

To evaluate the accuracy of the measurements, experimental

system was tested with distilled water before running the experi-
ments with nanouids. A typical comparison between the experi-
mental overall heat transfer coefcient and the prediction of
different correlations is shown in Fig. 3. Results show that at the air
volumetric ow rate of 740 m3/h and nanouid inlet temperature of
80  C good agreement exists between the experimental results and
the Sider-Tate [23] correlation while the correlation proposed by
Dehghandokht et al. [24] does not agree with the present experi-
mental data. Sider and Tate [23] relation has 8.4% absolute average
error while this value for the correlation of Dehghandokht et al.
[24] is 19%.

6.2. Effect of nanouid concentration on the overall heat transfer

coefcient

Fig. 4 presents the overall heat transfer coefcient of the CuO/

water nanouid as a function of nanouid ow rate at various
volume concentrations. As can be seen, the overall heat transfer
coefcient of nanouid increases signicantly with nanouid ow Fig. 4. Effect of nanouid concentration and nanouid volumetric ow rate on the
rate. The overall heat transfer coefcient at a constant nanouid overall heat transfer coefcient with nanouid.
 M. Naraki et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 66 (2013) 82e90 87

for large particles. They showed that the concentration of nano-

particles in the wall side of the tube is much larger than that of
microparticles in the wall side of the tube. It means that the
enhancement in the thermal conductivity of uid by the addition of
nanoparticles in the wall side of tube will be much larger than that
by the addition of microparticles. This enhancement in thermal
conductivity may cause an increase of the heat transfer coefcient
in the thermal boundary layer around the wall side of the tube. On
the other hand, since the microparticles tend to move toward the
center of the tube, the enhancement of thermal conductivity of
micro-particle suspension in the thermal boundary layer is low, so
the heat transfer coefcient does not change much.

6.3. Effect of nanouid inlet temperature on the overall heat

transfer coefcient

Fig. 5 compares the results for nanouid at the concentration of

0.4 vol.% and at different inlet temperatures in order to analyze the
effect of temperature variation on the overall heat transfer coef-
cient of the automobile radiator. It is clear from Fig. 5 that
increasing the uid inlet temperature decreases the overall heat
transfer coefcient of nanouid. It is also observed that in all Fig. 6. Effect of inlet nanouid temperature on the heat transfer enhancement of
experiments and under all operating conditions, there is a direct nanouid to base uid.

relationship between temperature and the enhancement of overall

heat transfer coefcient with nanouid compared with the base
uid. In other words, the smaller the operational temperature, the
more heat transferred to cold uid. According to Fig. 6, the ratio of
the overall heat transfer coefcient with nanouid to that of base
uid increases with decreasing inlet temperature and increasing
volumetric ow rate of nanouid at the constant air ow rate
740 m3/h and nanouid concentration 0.4 vol.%. This decrease in
the overall heat transfer coefcient of the nanouid with increase
in nanouid inlet temperature can be due to three factors:
1- When the temperature increases, a very small decrease
occurred in the nanouid density while its viscosity drops
greater, leading to a higher Reynolds number in high-
temperature nanouid.
2- Rapid alignment of nanoparticles in lower viscosity uids,
leading to less contact between nanoparticles.
3- Depletion of particles in the near-wall uid phase [27], leading
to an intrinsically lower thermal conductivity layer at the wall.
Understanding and isolating which mechanism or mechanisms
might be responsible for the experimental results requires signi-
cant future work including computational uid dynamic modeling
of the ows in nanoparticle dispersions.
6.4. Effect of nanouid volumetric ow rate on the overall heat
transfer coefcient
Fig. 7 shows the overall heat transfer coefcient with nanouid
as a function of nanouid ow rate at constant air ow rate and the
nanoparticle concentration. It is shown that the overall heat
transfer coefcient signicantly increases with increasing ow rate
of nanouid. For example, at the air ow rate of 870 m3/h, nanouid
concentration of 0.4 vol.%, and nanouid inlet temperature of 80  C,

Fig. 5. Effect of inlet nanouid temperature on the overall heat transfer coefcient Fig. 7. Effect of nanouid volumetric ow rate on the overall heat transfer coefcient
with nanouid. of CuO/water nanouid in the car radiator.
88 M. Naraki et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 66 (2013) 82e90

the overall heat transfer coefcient with nanouid are 79.30 and Table 3
81.23 W/m2 K at the nanouid volumetric ow rate of 0.4 and Number of factors and levels in each factor.

0.5 m3/h, respectively. Factors Level 1 Level 2 Level 3

C (vol.%) 0 0.15 0.4
6.5. Effect of air Reynolds number on the overall heat transfer T ( C) 50 65 80
qa (m3/h) 740 870 1009
coefcient qnf (m3/h) 0.3 0.4 0.5

It is clear from Fig. 8 that at nanouid volumetric ow rate of

0.4 m3/h and nanouid concentration of 0.4 vol.%, the overall heat
transfer coefcient with nanouid increases signicantly with
increasing air Reynolds numbers.
These higher heat transfer coefcients obtained by using
nanouid instead of water allow the working uid in the auto-
mobile radiator to be cooler. The addition of nanoparticles to the
water has the potential to improve automotive and heavy-duty
engine cooling rates or equally causes to remove the engine heat
with a reduced-size coolant system. Smaller coolant systems result
in smaller and lighter radiators, which in turn benet almost every
aspect of car and truck performance and lead to increased fuel
economy. Although the use of nanouid increases the overall heat
transfer coefcient in comparison with the base uid, some oper-
ational problems should also be considered in commercialization of
this technology. The nanouids remain stable for few days. Thus,
frequent relling of the nanouid in the car radiator is required.
Furthermore, problems associated with particle sedimentation in
the radiator and other equipment like water pump may enforce
manufacturer to employ special types and materials for the
equipment. Therefore, this subject needs more investigations to be
applied in future cars.
7. Statistical analysis using Taguchi method
The Taguchi method is usually used to reduce number of
experiments but in this study it is not the aim. Here this method is
used for statistical analysis of the experimental results such as
nding the inuence of each operating parameter, the optimal
value for each parameter and the maximum value of the overall
heat transfer coefcient with nanouid.
Here, applying Qualitek-4 software which uses the Taguchi
method, analyses of the experimental data have been performed. In
this study, larger the best is used. Number of parameters and
number of levels for each parameter are shown in Table 3. As can be
seen, four parameters were selected including nanouid concen-
tration (C), nanouid input temperature (T), air volumetric ow
rate (qa) and nanouid volumetric ow rate (qnf). It is clear that
each factor changes in the three levels.
According to the parameters and levels, the L9 orthogonal array
was used that is shown in Table 4. L9 orthogonal array is a factor
decit of 34-2 with 9 runs (a ninth complete factorial design
requires 81 runs). This structure will help us to examine every four
factor with 9 runs.
7.1. The inuence of each parameter in the response
Knowing this subject that which parameter has more effect in
the response is very important. Almost in studies that reviewed in
the eld of heat transfer of nanouids, magnitude of each param-
eter effect in the response has not been investigated.
Degrees of freedom, sums of squares, variance, pure sum and
contribution percent of each parameter in the response (overall
heat transfer coefcient with nanouid) were calculated. Results
demonstrated that the air volumetric ow rate has 42 percent
contribution in the response, while nanouid volumetric ow
rate, inlet temperature and concentration of nanouid have 23, 22
and 13 percent contribution in the response, respectively.
Signicant effect of air volumetric ow rate in the overall heat
transfer coefcient has also been determined in the study of
Leong et al. [16].
7.2. The optimum value of the overall heat transfer coefcient
According to predictions performed by Taguchi method using
Qualitek-4 software, the optimum value of level for nanouid
volumetric ow rate, air volumetric ow rate, nanoparticle
concentration and inlet temperature of the nanouid is specied at
0.5 m3/h, 1009 m3/h, 0.4 vol.% and 50  C, respectively. Results show
that a good agreement exists between the experimental results
and the predicted values by Taguchi method (only 2% error).
Furthermore, the maximum value for the overall heat transfer
coefcient according to the experimental data is 92.21 W/m2 K
while this value based on the prediction of Taguchi method is
94.11 W/m2 K.

Table 4
L9 array selected for experiments and the corresponding experimental results.

Columns U (W/m2 K)
Trial 1 1 1 1 1 72.13
Trial 2 1 2 2 2 76.44
Trial 3 1 3 3 3 82.54
Trial 4 2 1 2 3 88.19
Trial 5 2 2 3 1 79.60
Trial 6 2 3 1 2 73.91
Trial 7 3 1 3 2 91.61
Trial 8 3 2 1 3 78.74
Fig. 8. Effect of air Reynolds number to heat transfer coefcient of CuO/water nano-
Trial 9 3 3 2 1 76.68
uid in car radiator.
 M. Naraki et al. / International Journal of Thermal Sciences 66 (2013) 82e90 89

8. Conclusion ReD Reynolds number (dimensionless)

r empirical shape factor
In this article, the experimental overall heat transfer coefcient T temperature ( C)
in the automobile radiator has been measured using CuO/water U overall heat transfer coefcient (W/m2 K)
nanouid at different air and liquid volumetric ow rates, various
nanouid concentrations and several inlet temperatures of the
liquid. Also, the results have been statistically analyzed using Greek symbols
Taguchi method. The major conclusions are as follows: d tube thickness (m)
j particle sphericity
1- The overall heat transfer coefcient decreases with increasing 4 volume fraction of particles
inlet temperature of the nanouid. b fraction of the liquid volume which travels with a particle
2- The overall heat transfer coefcient enhances with the addition effectiveness
of nanoparticles to the base uid. At the concentrations of 0.15 h efciency
and 0.4 vol.% of CuO nanoparticles, the overall heat transfer m dynamic viscosity (Pa s)
coefcient enhancements compared with the pure water are 6% r density (kg/m3)
and 8%. k Boltzman constant 1.381  1023 (J/K)
3- The overall heat transfer coefcient increases with enhancing
volumetric ow rate of the nanouid signicantly.
4- Increasing the ow rate of the air (equally Rea) enhances the
overall heat transfer coefcient. Subscripts
5- According to the analysis performed using Taguchi method, the a air
best operating conditions includes minimum temperature, b bare tube
maximum concentration of nanouid, maximum ow rate of bf base uid
nanouid and maximum ow rate of air. f n
6- The predicted maximum value for the overall heat transfer i inlet, tube side
coefcient is 94.11 W/m2 K and the error between experimental o outlet, air side
value and the predicted one is 2%. nf nanouids
7- The air volumetric ow rate has 42% contribution in the overall s surface
heat transfer coefcient of CuO/water nanouid. Nanouid p particles
volumetric ow rate, inlet temperature and concentration of w water
nanouid have 23%, 22% and 13% contribution in the overall heat
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