Ricerc@Sapienza

In this study, the mixed convection of flow in a microchannel containing nanofluid is simulated by the Lattice Boltzmann Method. The water/functionalized multi-wall carbon nanotubes nanofluid is selected as the working fluid. The cold nanofluid passes through the warm walls of the microchannel to cool them down. The buoyancy forces caused by the mass of the nanofluid change the hydrodynamic properties of the flow.

Mixed convection heat transfer of air in a 2-D microchannel is investigated numerically by using lattice Boltzmann method. The effects of buoyancy forces on slip velocity and temperature profiles are presented while the microchannel side walls are under a constant heat flux boundary condition. Three states are considered as no gravity, Gr = 100 and Gr = 500. At each state, the value of Knudsen number is chosen as Kn = 0.005, Kn = 0.01 and Kn = 0.02 respectively; while Reynolds number and Prandtl number are kept fixed at Re = 1 and Pr = 0.7.