Experimental investigation on flow and heat transfer of a viscoelastic fluid based cu nanofluids

An experimental facility was established to study the characteristics of convective heat transfer and liquid flow resistance. The characteristics of heat transfer and flow resistance were investigated through experiments for nanofluids with different volume fraction of copper nanoparticles and different mass concentration of base fluid at turbulent state at 45°C. The experimental results show that the heat transfer ability was enhanced by adding copper nanoparticles for viscoelastic base fluid, while only a little drag reduction of viscoelastic base fluid was reduced. For example, when adding copper nanopartilces with 1.0% volume fraction into viscoelastic base fluid with mass fraction of 6×10^-4 to form a stable viscoelastic fluid based nanofluid, the comprehensive quality index K is 0.47, which means an excellent heat transfer enhancement and drag reducing property.