Experimental Pressure Drop Study with Nano Fluids

This paper reports an experimental study on the pressure drop characteristics of ZnO-water nanofluids through the horizontal annulus. Experiments were performed in single phase and boiling flow of nanofluids under turbulent flow with different low particle concentrations (≤0.01 vol. %). Experiments were conducted at flow rates from 0.1 to 0.175 lps, heat fluxes from 0 to 550 kW/m2 and 1 bar constant inlet pressure. The results show that the pressure drop of the nanofluids is very close to that of the base liquid flows for given flow rates. The pressure drop of the water and nanofluids increases with an increase in the flow rate and remains almost constant with increase in the heat flux.