MIXED CONVECTION HEAT TRANSFER OF SIO2-WATER AND ALUMINA-PAO NANO-LUBRICANTS USED IN A MECHANICAL BALL BEARING

In this study, the mixed convection heat transfer in a mechanical ball bearing filled with nano-lubricants were investigated theoretically. In our case, the bearing including eight balls revolving in counter clockwise while the inner shaft rotates in clockwise direction and the inner and outer walls of bearing were kept at constant hot and cold temperatures, respectively. Two kinds of nano-lubricants SiO₂-water and Alumina- Polyalphaolefin (PAO) with different shapes of nanoparticles were considered. The governing equations including velocity, pressure, and temperature formulation were solved based on the Galerkin finite element method. The governing parameters such as nanoparticle volume fraction, Reynolds and Rayleigh numbers, etc., were discussed. It turns out that the average Nusselt number increases by increasing the nanoparticle volume fraction (averagely 15% for each 0.02 increase) and the oil-based nano-lubricant has greater Nusselt number than the water based one. More importantly, the Nono-rod Alumina was found to show much greater heat transfer performance (averagely 5%) than the spherical alumina nanoparticles and nano-rod Alumina-PAO has the best performance and maximum Nusselt numbers for the heat transfer.