Since in most industrial rotating equipment, increasing thermal efficiency and reduction of drag has always been subject of interest, in this paper, a 2-D numerical investigation on mixed convection heat transfer and drag coefficient in a lid-driven square cavity filled with Al2O3 Nanofluid is done under the effect of an inner rotating cylinder. To analyze effective parameters on heat transfer and drag coefficient on movable wall, a sensitivity analysis is carried out utilizing the Response Surface Methodology. Simulations are performed for effective parameters of the Richardson number (0.1 <= Ri <= 10), dimensionless rotational speed (0 <= Omega <= 5), a/b ratios (0.5 <= S <= 1), and the Nanoparticle volume fraction (0.00 <= Phi <= 0.03) with a constant Grashof number of 10(4). It is found that the mean Nusselt number enhances with Ri number and Phi and decreases with increasing of Omega and S. Additionally, increasing the Ri number and Omega increases the drag coefficient but it reduces as Phi and S increase. The sensitivity analysis results showed that to maximize the mean Nu number and minimize the drag coefficient simultaneously, the effective parameters must be Omega = 0, Ri = 0.13636, Phi = 0.03 and S = 0.5. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.