Experimental investigation on flow and convective heat transfer feature of a nanofluid for aerospace thermal management

This paper studied the feature of flowing and heat transfer of spacecrafts nanofluid. both the convective heat transfer coefficient and friction factor of a new nanofluid for thermal management of spacecrafts flowing in a tube were measured, respectively. The effects of many factors as the volume fraction of suspended nanoparticles and the Reynolds number on the heat transfer and flow characteristics were discussed in detail. The experimental results showed that the suspended nanoparticles remarkably increased the convective heat transfer coefficient in comparison with that of the base fluid and showed that the heat transfer feature of a nanofluid increased with the volume fraction of nanoparticles. The friction factor of the nanofluid was higher than that for the pure fluid under the same Reynolds number. Comparison between the enhancement of convective heat transfer and the increment of pressure drop of the nanofluid for aerospace application showed that the increment of the friction factor of the nanofluid was much lower than the enhancement magnitude of the convective heat transfer coefficient of the nanofluid. It is expected that this type of the nanofluid is suitable for practical application in thermal management system of spacecrafts.