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DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF NANO PARTICLES CAR RADIATOR TEST RIG

Research · November 2015

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.5054.0887

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Vorathin Epin
Universiti Malaysia Pahang
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DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF NANO PARTICLES CAR RADIATOR TEST RIG

Vorathin

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP), 26600 Pekan, Pahang,
Malaysia, Phone: +6094246255; Fax: +6094246222
Email: vora.91.11@hotmail.com

ABSTRACT

This project is to design and develop a car radiator test rig which can be used for experimental
testing of the effectiveness of the heat transfer enhancement across the heat exchanger or the car
radiator as different concentration of nanoparticles dispersed in water as a base fluid can affect
the heat transfer or heat dissipation across the car radiator. The properties of nanofluid will
enhance the heat exchange. Radiators are heat exchangers of forced convection which is used
for cooling the internal combustion engines that are often cooled by circulating a liquid coolant
through the engine block where it is heated and through a radiator where it loses heat to the
atmosphere and then returned to the engine. The design of the test rig consists of reservoir
plastic tank, electrical heater, centrifugal pump, flow meter, tubes, valves, fan, DC power
supply, 10 thermocouples type T for temperature measurement, manometer tube with mercury
and radiator. The nanofluid is then being prepared in laboratory then this nanofluid will then be
used as coolant in the radiator. The temperature of the thermocouples is then taken and recorded
to determine the heat transfer across car radiator.

Keywords: nanofluid; nano particles; car radiator; test rig.

INTRODUCTION

In the past 10 years, adding of solid nanoparticles to liquids has been a great research to enhance
the heat transfer [1]. In automotive industry, an effectiveness of heat exchanger and heat transfer
enhancement became necessary to reduce the energy required in the world [2]. Enhancement of
nanoparticles in liquid as coolant not only can increase the heat dissipation in automotive
industry but also in machining industry like grinding surface finishing, increasing tool life and
wear mechanism and coolant for milling machining [3-6]. Internal combustion engine is a heat
engine where the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber that is
an integral part of the working fluid circuit. In an internal combustion engine the expansion of
the high temperature and high pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to
some component of the engine [7, 8]. Internal combustion engine cooling uses either air or a
liquid to remove waste heat from an internal combustion engine [1, 2, 7-17]. The more complex
circulating liquid cooled engines also ultimately reject waste heat to the air but circulating liquid
improves heat transfer from internal parts of the engine [8]. Radiators are heat exchangers of
forced convection which is used for cooling the internal combustion engines that are often
cooled by circulating a liquid coolant through the engine block where it is heated and through a
radiator where it loses heat to the atmosphere and then returned to the engine [17, 18]. Engine
coolant is usually water based but may also be oil. It is common to employ a water pump to
force the engine coolant to circulate and also for an axial fan to force air through the radiator
[7]. As a coolants flow through this passage it picks up the heat from the engine [8]. This liquid
is cooled by air stream entering the engine compartment from the grill in front of the car [8]. A
thermostat is placed between the engine and the radiator to make sure that the coolant stays
above a certain temperature. If the coolant temperature falls below this temperature the
thermostat blocks the coolant flow to the radiator forcing the fluid instead through a bypass
directly back to the engine [8]. In order to prevent the coolant from boiling, the cooling system
is designed to be pressurized. Under the pressure the boiling point of the coolant is raised
considerably. However too much pressure will result to burst of hoses, so system is needed to
relieve pressure if it exceeds a certain point, this work is done by radiator cap. Figure 1 below
shows the illustration of radiator used as cooling system in the internal combustion engine [8].

Radiator

Air Flow

Engine block

Fan

Figure 1. Illustration of radiator in internal combustion engine (Jha et al., 2015)

METHODOLOGY

Radiator test rig design

Figure 2 below shows the design of the test rig [1]. The design of the test rig consists of
reservoir plastic tank, electrical heater, centrifugal pump, flow meter, tubes, valves, fan , DC
power supply, 10 thermocouples type T for temperature measurement, manometer tube with
mercury and radiator [1, 2]. An electrical heater 1500 W inside a plastic storage tank 40 cm
height and 30 cm diameter put to represent the engine and to heat the fluid; a voltage regulator
0-220 V provide the power to keep inlet temperature to the radiator at 80oC. A flow meter 0-70
LPM and two valves used to measure and control the flow rate; the fluid flows through plastic
tubes 0.5in by a centrifugal pump 0.5hp and 3m head from the tank to the radiator at the flow
rate range 0.5-8 LPM; the total volume of the circulating fluid is 3 L and constant in all the
experimental; two thermocouples type T joined to record inlet and outlet temperatures of fluid;
eight thermocouples type T also connected to radiator surface to ensure more of surface are
measurement; two thermocouples type T also fixed in front of the fan and another side of
radiator to measure air temperatures [1, 2]. Very small thickness and high thermal conductivity
of the copper flat tubes caused to make the inside temperature of the tube with the outside one
are square [1]. A hand held digital thermometer are used to read all the temperatures from
thermocouples [1]. Calibration of thermocouples and thermometers carried out by using a
constant temperature water bath and their accuracy estimated to be 0.15oC [1]. Two small
plastic tubes diameter connected at inlet and outlet radiator and joined to U-tube mercury
manometer with accurate scaled 0.5 mmHg to measure the pressure drop on the inlet and outlet
of it [2]. The car radiator has louvered fin and 32 flat vertical copper tubes with flat cross
sectional area. The distances among the tube rows filled with thin perpendicular copper fins [2].
For the air side, an axial force fan (1500rpm) installed close on axis line of the radiator [2]. The
DC power supply used to turn the axial fan instead of a car battery [2].

2
 Tout
Radiator

Thermocouples

Flowmeter

Valve Tin
Heater
Manometer

Drain Tank Pump Valve

Valve

Figure 2. Illustration of radiator test rig design (A. Hussein et al., 2014)

Preparation of nanofluid

The thermal conductivity of metallic liquids is much greater than that of nonmetallic liquids.
Therefore, the thermal conductivities of fluids that contain suspended solid metallic particles
could be expected to be significantly higher than those of conventional heat transfer [19]. Nano-
fluids are liquids which possess particles size that is significantly smaller than 100mm [7, 12,
15, 20-25]. In preparing for the nanofluid, the water must be prepared by double distillation and
then measured the quantities of nanoparticles dispersed in a base fluid to obtained mass
concentration; the aid of mechanical stirrer used to achieve homogenously dispersed solution
and this method already depended from and then subjected to ultrasonic for at least 3 hours to
break up any residual agglomerations [2]. The mass concentration quantities of nano-particles
dispersed in a base fluid can be calculated using Eq 1 [2].

(1)

The volume concentration of nanofluid depending on nanoparticles density and base fluid
density can be calculated using Eq 2 [2].

(2)

3
 CONCLUSION

In this paper, it was an attempted to design and develop the car radiator test rig and to prepare
the nano-particles in base fluid as nanofluid to be used as coolant to circulate the heat transfer
inside the car radiator. Nanofluid as coolant in car radiator is claimed to be can increase the heat
circulation in internal combustion engine. The car radiator test rig is made up of several main
components like reservoir plastic tank, electrical heater, centrifugal pump, flow meter, tubes,
valves, fan, DC power supply, 10 thermocouples type T for temperature measurement,
manometer tube with mercury and radiator. The car radiator test rig experiment is carry out by
taking all the thermocouples reading across the radiator to determine the heat dissipation.

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