CFD simulation for evaluation of optimum heat transfer rate in a heat exchanger of an internal combustion engine

Heat exchanger is an essential component of an engine cooling system. Radiators are compact heat exchangers used to transfer the heat absorbed from engine to the cooling media. The jacket cooling water gets cooled and re-circulated into system after exchanging the heat with cooling water in a heat exchanger. Conventional fluids like water, oil, ethylene glycol, etc. possess less heat transfer performance; therefore, it is essential to have a compact and effective heat transfer system to obtain the required heat transfer.A reduction in energy consumption is possible by improving the performance of heat exchanging systems and incorporating various heat transfer enhancement techniques. In this paper, the heat transfer rate using nano-sized ferrofluid with and without magnetization is analysed using CFD simulation and compared with the experimental values obtained from a heat exchanger using water as base fluid. The heat transfer rate is measured using different combinations by varying the percentage of nano particles and by introduction of different magnetic intensity (gauss) on to the ferrofluid. The optimum heat transfer rate and efficiency of heat exchanger is calculated with the different combinations and the values are compared with the values of CFD simulation. CFD simulation was undertaken for water alone as cooling media and for water with ferro particle addition from 2% to 5%. The difference in temperature observed to be similar with experimental values. The deviation is within the acceptable limit and therefore the experimental findings are validated. The experiment was conducted on a parallel flow heat exchanger with water alone as cooling media, water with varying percentage of ferro fluid and water with varying magnetic intensity on ferrofluid. Percentage of ferro particles added up to where the optimum temperature difference could be obtained and the magnetic intensity also varied up to the optimum value. © 2020 EDP Sciences. All rights reserved.