Heat exchangers are used to transfer heat between two process streams. Improving the rate of heat transfer as well as minimizing the pressure drop is one of the promising fields to focus on. Nanofluids with better thermo-physical properties can increase the heat transfer rate. In the present study, thermo-physical properties of Al2O3 nanofluid are compared with base fluid at different temperatures and the variation of heat transfer coefficient, output temperature and pressure drop along the shell side for shell and tube heat exchanger is evaluated for given inlet temperature 333 K. Empirical correlations are used to revise the thermo-physical properties using the user functions and expressions in Ansys CFX. Heat exchanger performance optimization is done in Design Explorer of Ansys Workbench by deploying the required parameters. From the evaluations, it is notified that heat transfer rate has been increased for all the volume fractions taken into consideration compared to water (base fluid) and for particular deployed parameter value of volume fraction (0.025 V) and velocity (0.015 m/s) optimized solution is obtained. Keywords: Pressure drop, Heat exchangers, nanofluidsCite this Article Bhatti SK, Siddhardha R, Pavan Kumar K, et al. Optimization of Performance of Shell and Tube Heat Exchanger with Al2O3 Nanofluid as Working Fluid. Recent Trends in Fluid Mechanics. 2015; 2(2): 18–25p.
