In the present work, an attempt is made to investigate the performance of three fluids with forced convection in a wavy channel. The fluids are water, a nanofluid of 1% TiO2 in a water solution and a hybrid fluid which consists of 1% Al2O3-Cu nanoparticles in a water solution. The wavy channel has a porous insert with a permeability of 10 PPI, 20 PPI and 40 PPI, respectively. Since Reynolds number is less than 1000, the flow is assumed laminar, Newtonian and steady state. Results revealed that wavy channel provides a better heat enhancement than a straight channel of the same dimension. Porous material increases heat extraction at the expenses of the pressure drop. The nanofluid of 1% TiO2 in water provided the highest performance evaluation criteria.
Keywords: forced convection; heat enhancement; mesh model; nanofluids; porous cavity; pressure drop; wavy channels.