In this work, SiO2–water nanofluids are utilized to improve heat transfer characteristics of a novel heat sink. Commercial Fluent and Gambit package is utilized to run the test. Two different thermal conductivity models previously introduced by other researchers are tested and it is shown that one of them predicts the heat transfer coefficients better in comparison to the other. The range of volume fractions are from 0.5% to 2%. Also, temperatures at a hot spot can be reduced up to 3 C by implementing a pin in the hot zone. The novel heat sink is shown to decrease the temperature of the hot spot by a significant amount. This is crucial for devices that need to operate very closely to their shutdown temperatures. Keywords: Nanofluid, Novel Heat Sink, Heat Transfer, Pressure Drop, Hot SpotCite this Article Hootan Zirakzadeh, Numerical investigation of effect of SiO2-water nanofluid on convective heat transfer and pressure drop of a novel heat sink, Recent Trends in Fluid Mechanics, 2015; 2(2): 9–13p.
