Experimental Analysis of Heat Transfer and Friction Factor in Plate Heat Exchanger with Different Orientations Using Al2O3 Nanofluids

Experimental investigations have been done to find out the heat transfer characteristics and frictionfactor of water based Al2O3 nanofluids as a coolant in brazed plate heat exchanger. In most of thestudies plate heat exchangers either used in horizontal or vertical conditions. The base plate of the plateheat exchanger was kept inclined at (0⁰, 30⁰ ,60⁰, 90⁰). The experimentation has been carried out withtwo different concentration of the nanofluids (0.1 v/v% and 0.2 v/v%). It was observed that the heattransfer characteristics improves with an increase in Reynolds number. It has been studied thatnanofluids in a plate heat exchanger have a maximum of 34% heat transfer rate over the base fluid. Ithas been observed that from horizontal to vertical heat transfer rate decreases with increase inReynolds number. The average heat transfer coefficient has been found reduced by (10-15) % whenthe angle of inclination of base plate of heat exchanger inclined from horizontal to 30⁰.