THERMOPHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF TWO-PHASE REFRIGERANT BASED NANOFLUIDS IN A REFRIGERATION CYCLE


Tekin B., Yazicioglu A. G.

ASME Summer Heat Transfer Conference, Washington, Kiribati, 10 - 14 Temmuz 2016 identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Bildiri / Tam Metin Bildiri
  • Basıldığı Şehir: Washington
  • Basıldığı Ülke: Kiribati
  • Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Hayır

Özet

Nanofluids are a class of fluids with nanoparticles suspended in a base fluid. The aim for using nanofluids is often to improve the thermophysical properties of the base fluid so as to enhance the energy transfer efficiency. As the technology develops; the size of devices and systems needs to get smaller to fulfill the engineering requirements and/or to be leading among competitors. The use of nanofluids in heat transfer applications seems to be a viable solution to current heat transfer problems, albeit with certain limitations. As an enhancing factor for the thermal conductivity of the base fluid, nanofluids are considered to be use in cooling system applications. For these applications, the base fluid, the refrigerant, exists as a two-phase liquid-vapor mixture in parts of the refrigeration cycle. To analyze, design and optimize the cycle in such applications, the thermophysical properties of the refrigerant based nanofluids for two-phase flow of refrigerant are needed. There are different models present in the literature derived for the thermophysical properties of nanofluids. However, a majority of the existing models for nanofluid thermophysical properties have been proposed for water- and other liquids-based nanofluids, through theoretical, numerical and experimental research. Therefore, the existing models for determination of the nanofluid thermophysical properties are not applicable for refrigerant based nanofluid applications when the results are compared. Thus, in this work, a new model is derived for the thermal conductivity and viscosity of refrigerant based nanofluids, using existing data from both heat transfer and thermophysical property measurement experiments. The effect of the nanoparticles on heat transfer in two phase flow of the refrigerant is considered by applying the two phase heat transfer correlations in the literature to experimental data. As a result, the thermophysical properties of the known states are determined through known heat transfer performance. Even though the model is developed from the analysis of flow in an evaporator and flow in a single tube with evaporating refrigerant, it is aimed to cover the flows in both evaporator and condenser sections in a vapor compression refrigeration cycle to provide the necessary models for thermophysical properties in heat transfer devices which will allow the design of both cycle and evaporator or condenser in terms of sizing and rating problems by performing heat transfer analysis and/or optimization. The model can also be improved by considering the effects of slip mechanisms that lead to slip velocity between the nanoparticle and base fluid.