Experimental Improvement of Ejector Performance Through Numerical Optimization of Nozzle Geometry

Ejectors are widely used in different applications such as refrigeration, propulsion, evacuation and aerospace. They use a pressurized flow as a motive stream to entrain a secondary flow or suction flow. In the current study, a malfunctioning steam ejector is studied experimentally to identify the sources of low compression ratio. This ejector was designed to operate under a motive pressure of 6 bar. However, the required vacuum in the system was not attained unless the pressure of motive steam was increased to 8 bar. The steam ejector was coupled with other unit operating facilities and hence, the ejector replacement was very costly. Therefore, the fastest and the most inexpensive way of improving the device performance was considered as replacing just the primary nozzle and without any further change in ejector’s geometry. To achieve the required vacuum under the available motive pressure (i.e. 6 bar), a CFD–based optimization procedure was performed and different nozzle shapes were numerically investigated. The CFD Models were constrained to a fixed constant throat since the optimized nozzle shall not consume more flow rate than the former one. Ten different nozzle geometries were scrutinized in this numerical simulation and the one, which yields the highest entraining performance under the given boundary condition (i.e. motive flow pressure of 6 bar), was selected as the most optimized nozzle and manufactured. After installing the designed nozzle, an improved entrainment capability was observed and a desired vacuum level was attained under the nominal pressure of 6 bar.