Fractal‐fractional analysis and numerical simulation for the heat transfer of ZnO + Al2O3 + TiO2/DW based ternary hybrid nanofluid

Abstract Nanofluids are used to achieve maximum thermal performance with the smallest concentration of nanoparticles and stable suspension in conventional fluids. The effectiveness of nanofluids in convection processes is significantly influenced by their increased thermophysical characteristics. However, this technology is not ended here; binary and ternary nanofluids are now used to improve the efficiency of regular fluids. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the natural convection Newtonian ternary nanofluid flow in a vertical channel. The tri‐hybridized nanoparticles of zinc oxide ZnO, Aluminum oxide Al 2 O 3 , and titanium oxide TiO 2 is dissolved in base fluid distilled water (DW) to form a homogenous suspension. The impact of thermal radiation, joule heating, and viscous dissipation are also assumed. The classical Newtonian ternary nanofluid model has been generalized by using fractal‐fractional derivative (FFD) operator. The generalized model has been discretized by using the Crank–Nicolson scheme and then solved by using computational software. To analyze the behavior of fluid flow and heat distribution in fluid, the obtained solution was computed numerically and then plotted in response to different physical parameters. It is noted from the figure that when the volume fraction ϕ reaches to 0.04 (4% of the base fluid), the ternary nanofluid flow shows a significant amount of enhancement in heat transfer rate as compared to binary and unary nanofluid flows. This enhancement in the rate of heat transfer leads to improve the thermophysical characteristics such as viscosity, thermal expansion, and heat capacity etc. of the base fluid. It is also worth mentioning here that the thermal field is also enhance with the higher values of Eckert number , radiation parameter , and joule heating parameter .