In industrial-thermal applications, pulsating flow along with carbon-based nanofluids is a well adopted active method, although not in plate heat exchangers (PHEs). The performance of a PHE with carbon-based nanofluids was experimentally evaluated by superimposing pulsating flow along with steady-state flow. The results demonstrated that the use of GNP-water, hybrid GNP/MWCNT-water, and MWCNT-water nanofluids with volume fractions ranging from 0.01% to 0.1% in a steady-state flow led to improved average heat-transfer rates of 1.34, 1.27, and 1.25, respectively. Furthermore, implementation of pulsating flow enhanced the average heat-transfer rate, in comparison to that of the steady-state flow in the same nanofluids, in the range of 10.9%–28.2%, 9%–25.4%, and 7.1%–14.8%, respectively. Pulsating flow in nanofluids improved heat-transfer rate more than it did in pure water owing to the enhancement of the Brownian motion of the suspended carbon-based nanoparticles. In the considered volume fractions from 0.01% to 0.1%, the pulsating flow condition increased the pressure drop by a factor of 1.48, 1.49, and 1.62 for the MWCNT-water, hybrid GNP/MWCNT-water, and GNP-water nanofluids, respectively, in comparison to pure water. The experimental results indicated that the pulsating flow had a more profound influence on the improvement of heat-transfer rate and pressure drop in the case of GNP-based nanofluid than in the others. This could be attributed to the unique platelet shape of the GNP nanoparticles and consequently the higher Brownian motion. The improvement in the heat-transfer rate, obtained through implementation of the pulsating flow condition, outweighed the cost of increase in pressure drop in all the cases. Among the nanofluids considered, the hybrid GNP/MWCNT-water nanofluid exhibited the best overall performance of 1.2.

在工业热应用中，脉动流和碳基纳米流体是一种广泛采用的主动方法，尽管在板式换热器 (PHE) 中不是这样。通过将脉动流与稳态流叠加来实验评估具有碳基纳米流体的 PHE 的性能。结果表明，使用的GNP -水，混合GNP / MWCNT -水，和MWCNT在稳态流动中体积分数从 0.01% 到 0.1% 不等的水纳米流体分别使平均传热率提高了 1.34、1.27 和 1.25。此外，与相同纳米流体中的稳态流动相比，脉动流的实施提高了平均传热率，范围为 10.9%–28.2%、9%–25.4% 和 7.1%–14.8 ％， 分别。由于悬浮的碳基纳米粒子的布朗运动增强，纳米流体中的脉动流比纯水中更能提高传热率。在考虑的 0.01% 到 0.1% 的体积分数中，脉动流条件使MWCNT-水、混合GNP/MWCNT-水和GNP 的压降增加了 1.48、1.49 和 1.62 倍-水纳米流体，分别与纯水相比。实验结果表明，脉动流对以GNP为基础的纳米流体的传热率和压降的改善影响比其他的要大。这可能归因于GNP纳米粒子独特的小片形状，从而导致更高的布朗运动。在所有情况下，通过实施脉动流条件获得的传热率的提高超过了压降增加的成本。在考虑的纳米流体中，混合GNP/MWCNT-水纳米流体表现出最佳的整体性能，为 1.2。