Effect of Different Shapes of Nanoparticles on Mixed Convective Nanofluid Flow in a Darcy-Forchhiemer Porous Medium

Abstract

The nanofluid has diverse applications in industries, engineering, and medicine due to its greater thermal characteristics. However, various factors such as the shape and size of nanoparticles, the base fluid, the porous medium, the quadratic drag force, and the viscous dissipation have significant effects on the flow and heat transfer characteristics of nanofluids. Therefore, it is crucial to study the influence of these factors. In this paper, a theoretical investigation is conducted to analyze the mechanisms of thermal conductivities of different shapes of nanoparticles, such as platelet, cylinder, brick and blade on the mixed convective nanofluid flow in a vertical channel saturated with porous medium. Consider ethylene glycol and water as base fluids for the nanoparticles, including copper, aluminum oxide, titanium oxide, silver, and iron oxide. A thin, movable baffle plate of negligible thickness is inserted in the channel and made into double passages. To define the porous matrix, the Darcy-Brinkaman-Forchhiemer model is used, and to define the nanofluid, the Tiwari and Das model is used. Robin boundary conditions are considered for the channel flow. The differential transform method (DTM) is applied to solve non-linear governing equations with inertia, and the perturbation method is applied to solve the problem without inertia. Velocity and temperature cantors are shown graphically using MATLAB and MATHEMATICA. The obtained values by DTM and the perturbation method are well validated and shown graphically. The Nusselt number was evaluated and tabulated for all governing parameters. The objective of this article is to investigate the effect of nonspherical shapes of nanoparticles, the base fluid, the inertial forces of the porous medium, and the buoyancy force on the thermal characteristics of flow and heat transfer of nanofluids. The main findings of this problem are that the optimum velocity and temperature cantor are found for platelet-shaped water-based silver nanofluid.