Simulation Of the Thermal Performance of a Shell-And-Tube Heat Exchanger Using Nanofluids as Heat Transfer Fluids

With industrial development, thermal technologies are among the technological pillars, making the optimization of heat exchangers a major challenge in many processes.This study explores the thermal performance of a shell-and-tube heat exchanger using nanofluids as the heat transfer fluid.The integration of these fluids is a promising avenue for improving their thermal properties.The simulation is performed using COMSOL Multiphysics software, and models are used to predict the thermophysical properties of nanofluids.The impact of the volume fraction of nanoparticles (Al2O3, CuO, and Cu) on the overall heat transfer coefficient, efficiency, and exchanger power was evaluated.The simulations show that increasing the mass flow rate significantly improves thermal performance, with 40-43% increases in heat transfer and convection coefficients, and a 42.77% increase in thermal power when the Reynolds number increases from 4000 to 16000.The addition of nanoparticles, particularly Cu, improves thermal efficiency, reaching 35.71% with an 8% volume fraction, thanks to their high conductivity.These results confirm the potential of nanofluids, particularly Cu/water, to optimize heat exchange and reduce costs in industry.