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Study the optimum geometries of an adjustable ejector for the refrigeration system.
CFD models are established and validated by the experimental results.
PRR is sensitive to nozzle diverging angle and length of the CPMS.
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: In this paper, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) technique is used to investigate the optimum ge-
Received 13 October 2012 ometry parameters of the adjustable ejector, which is used in variable cooling loads conditions, for the
Accepted 26 August 2013 performance of pressure recovery in a multi-evaporator refrigeration system (EMERS) using R134a as the
Available online 4 September 2013
refrigerant. The performance of pressure recovery reflects the performance of the compression energy
saving. The developed CFD model is first validated by actual experimental data of an EMERS. The keu
Keywords:
esst model is chosen as the turbulence model, and then used to find the optimum geometry parameters:
Geometry parameters
nozzle diverging angle, length of the constant-pressure mixing section, nozzle exit position and
Adjustable ejector
Pressure recovery ratio
converging angle of the constant-pressure mixing section, for high performance in pressure recovery
Multi-evaporator refrigeration system properties. Through the analysis of physical mechanism, the results indicate that the pressure recovery
Experimental rig ratio can be efficiently improved after the geometries optimization which is very sensitive to the nozzle
Validated CFD model diverging angle and the length of the constant-pressure mixing section.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1359-4311/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2013.08.033
650 C. Lin et al. / Applied Thermal Engineering 61 (2013) 649e656
Mixing Conventional fixed nozzle ejector cannot sustain the good per-
Suction section Diffuser formance once the primary load changes. In a real multi-evaporator
Nozzle Chamber refrigeration system, varying of cooling loads, especially the air-
conditioning load may be drastic. This means that as the cooling
Primary Mixing loads vary, a conventional ejector may be inefficient in the system.
Flow Mp, Pp Flow In order to solve this problem, an adjustable ejector using spindle to
adjust the throat area of primary nozzle, which was described by
P Stefan [3], was adopted in the ejector-based multi-evaporator
Secondary
Flow Ms, Ps refrigeration system, and the adaptability of the adjustable ejector
Pp for variable cooling loads and the characteristics of pressure re-
covery were investigated [21].
However, so far, the optimum geometry parameters for the
Pm
adjustable ejector in EMERS have not been focused on. In this work,
Ps the effects of geometry parameters such as nozzle diverging angle,
length of the constant-pressure mixing section, nozzle exit position
and converging angle of constant-pressure mixing section in the
p e1 2 3 4 5 m adjustable ejector on the pressure recovery properties were
L numerically evaluated based on CFD technique. The CFD model was
firstly validated by the experimental results. Then 84 different
Fig. 1. The schematic diagram of the ejector. ejector geometries were created to investigate the effects of these
geometry parameters on the pressure recovery properties of the
ejectors. The manners in which these geometry parameters affect
exit position to constant area section inlet (NXP) on ejector per-
the pressure recovery properties of ejector are carefully analyzed
formance. Varga and Li et al. [4,19] discussed about the optimum
and may provide a design guideline for the EMERS.
length of constant area mixing section for both single-phase and
two-phase ejectors. Zhu et al. [18] also studied the influence of
converging angle of constant pressure mixing chamber on ejector 2. CFD model
performance. These studies are significant to guide the ejector
design for better performance of ejector system. In the numerical study, the commercial package, Gambit 2.3 and
In the second application of ejector in refrigeration system, Fluent 6.3, were used for grid generating and CFD solver, respec-
Kairouani et al. proposed to use ejectors for improving the suc- tively. The initial ejector geometry parameters for CFD modeling
tion pressure before compressor in such a refrigeration system to were shown in Fig. 4.
reduce the compression energy consumption [7]. Based on their For each ejector, we applied the axi-symmetric method to
research, we further proposed a novel multi-evaporator refrig- model the ejector geometry in a 2D domain instead of the complex
eration system with ejectors (EMERS). The schematic of the 3D model, in which case the initial mesh was made at about
system and its (peh) diagram are shown in Fig. 2(a) and (b), 24,000e28,000 structured quadrilateral elements depending on
respectively. The detailed working principle and operating pro- the geometry of the ejector. To predict the internal flow status
cedure of the system can be found in our previous study [20] better, solution-adaptive mesh refinement was employed when the
(Fig. 3). pressure gradient was 10 or above in the simulation region, and
The performance of pressure recovery through the ejectors can totally over 43,000 cells were finally reached. The adapted mesh, as
be evaluated by the pressure recovery ratio (PRR) which is shown in Fig. 5, thus could better resolve the features of the flow
described as below [20]: field.
In the solver set, the “Segregated-implicit” solver was chosen to
pb ps solve the non-linear governing equations for the flow inside the
PRR ¼ 100% (1)
ps ejector. The SIMPLEC algorithm was applied to solve the coupled
pressure and velocity. The second-order upwind scheme was
where, pb and ps are the back pressure and the secondary flow inlet adopted to discretize convective terms. Three turbulence models:
pressure of ejector. Standard keε model, Renormalization-group (RNG) keε model and
SOLV
Ejector 2
9 10 1 2
7
P
8 Compressor
Ejector 1
3 2
Evaporator 2
Evaporator 3
Evaporator 1
Condenser
10
4
7
5 1
5 6 4 9
8
EEV2 EEV3 EEV1 6
3
Primary Flow
Mixing Section
Motor
Mixed Flow
Diffuser
Suction Chamber
Spindle Nozzle
Secondary Flow
keuesst model were tried out for the simulation of the ejector and than the rates under the normal meshes and refined meshes while
thus compared with the results from the experiments. The keuesst the rates under refined meshes are almost the same with the rates
model was finally chosen as the turbulence model in this study for under normal meshes, which means that the normal meshes are
its more accurately predicting ejector performance than the other enough and accurate to obtain the reliable results.
two turbulence models.
In order to solve governing equations, several boundary con- 3. Experimental validation
ditions were applied. The primary and secondary inlets of ejector
were set as “pressure inlet” condition. The “pressure outlet” con- In order to validate the CFD model for the adjustable ejector, an
dition was adopted on the outlet of the ejector. Adiabatic thermal experimental rig was built, as shown in Figs. 6 and 7. The system
condition was applied for the ejector wall by setting a zero heat mainly consists of a compressor type of BITZER 2CC-4.2Y, two
flux at the wall surface. The refrigerant R134a was chosen as the ejectors including one adjustable ejector and one conventional
working fluid and its properties such as density, specific heat, ejector, an air-cooled condenser, three electronic expansion valves
thermal conductivity, viscosity and molecular weight were derived (EEV) and three evaporators.
from R134a’s real fluid thermodynamic properties provided in In order to measure the primary and secondary flow rates,
NIST [22]. temperatures and pressures, several sensors were installed, list as
For each simulation, the solution was iterated until convergence below:
was achieved, that is, until the residual for each equation fell below
104 and changes in mass flow rates for both primary flow and pressure transmitters with a full scale error of 0.5% (0e10 bar);
secondary flow were negligible. In general, it was observed that the temperature sensors of PT1000 platinum resistance with error
residual for continuity equation was below 105 while the residuals of 0.3 C;
for other equations were below 107. calibrated mass flow rate meters with error of 1.6%.
To verify the meshes are enough for the reliable results, sparse
meshes, normal meshes and refined meshes were adopted for the The designed evaporating temperatures for air-conditioning
ejector models under different working conditions. The sparse (Evaporator 1), refrigeration (Evaporator 2) and freeze (Evapo-
meshes contained about 16,000 elements, while the refined rator 3) of the system are 7 C, 5 C and 30 C, respectively.
meshes reached over 66,600 cells, twice as much as the cell amount Since both ejectors have similar working procedure and are used
of normal meshes. The comparison of sparse meshes, normal to improve the pressure of secondary flow, we only investigated
meshes and refined meshes can be seen in Table 1. Ejector 1 in our study. Designed conditions for Ejector 1 are shown
The results of Table 1 were calculated at primary inlet pressure in Table 2.
3.7 bar, secondary inlet pressure 1.0 bar and back pressure 1.2 bar. It To validate the CFD model, several experiments were conducted
is obvious that the flow rates under sparse meshes are much less and the results are listed in Table 3; the primary nozzle throat area
4 4 6 10
Outflow
Primary fluid
20 15
15 40 80
Secondary fluid
V8
Super heated Vapor
Saturated Liquid
Liquid + Vapor 1
V10 V11 V9 Sole Valve
Liquid + Vapor 2
V6 V5
T12 Liquid + Vapor 3
P6 High pressure Vapor
PRV2 V7 T9 PRV1
T10 T11 Medium pressure Vapor
Low pressure Vapor
Testing Testing Testing
Accumulator Vapor Mixture 1
Chamber 2 Chamber 3 Chamber 1
Vapor Mixture 2
T7 T8 T6
Hand Valve
Evaporator 2 Evaporator 3 Evaporator 1 Pressure Regulating Valve
T4 T5 T3
P4 P5 P3 T1
Electronic Expansion Valve
Receiver P1
EEV2 EEV3 EEV1 Temperature Measurement
Pressure Measurement
V3 V4 V2 Condensor
Solenoid Valve
F Flowmeter 2 F Flowmeter 3 F Flowmeter 1
V1
Adjustable Ejector
Ejector
P2 T2
Table 3
Experimental flow rates at different nozzle throat area ratio.
flow rate is always kept the same. This also can be concluded by the
varying of PRR, which reflects the potential energy at the exit of
ejector. According to the results, PRR decreases from 18.8% to 5.0%,
which, therefore, is possibly caused by the reduction of maximum
exergy in primary flow.
In order to find a high PRR ejector which also has good adapt-
ability for the variable cooling loads, 84 CFD models were estab-
lished to research the optimum geometries of the ejector such as
nozzle diverging angle, length of the constant-pressure mixing
section, nozzle exit position and converging angle of the constant-
pressure mixing section.
Table 2
Designed conditions for ejector 1.
Parameter Value
BAR 0
BAR 10%
25 BAR 20%
BAR 30%
BAR 40%
BAR 50%
20
PRR (%)
15
10
0 2 4 6 8 10
NDA (°)
In order to find out the optimum primary nozzle diverging angle 4.2. Optimum length of the constant-pressure mixing section
(NDA) of the adjustable ejector, the primary nozzle diverging angle
was increased in steps as 0 , 2.5 , 5 ,7.5 and10 . The PRR with the The effect of the length of the constant-pressure mixing section
varying NDA under different BAR is presented in Fig. 10.The sec- (Lcm) on PRR was investigated and the results are shown in Fig. 11. It
ondary flow rates were all kept in the designed value. The results can be seen from the results that when the BAR was 0, the PRR
indicate that when the BAR was 0, PRR increased from 16.6% to the increased from 18.6% to the maximum of 27.7% as the Lcm increased
maximum of 19.1% as the NDA increased from 0 to 10 . When the from 15 mm to 25 mm, and decreased to 25.9% when the Lcm was
BAR increased to 10%, the peak of the PRR appeared at an NDA of 30 mm. Then, as the BAR increased, the trend of the PRR was
7.5 . As the BAR increased further, the points where the PRR starts repeated wherein it initially raised and then decreased with
to drop occurred at subsequently lower NDA. For instance, as the increasing Lcm. However, the available maximum PRR in each curve
BAR was increased from 20% to 50%, the NDA at which the decreased from 27.7% to 8.5% as the BAR was increased. In all
maximum points of PRR occurred decreased from 5 to 0 . A conditions, it is obvious that the peaks of PRR appeared in the range
possible reason for the phenomenon is that as the BAR increases,
the shape of the flow domain in the nozzle changes, and the critical
area Acr of the nozzle decreases. According to the equation list BAR 0
BAR 10%
below: 30 BAR 20%
kþ1 BAR 30%
A 1 2 k 1 2 2ðk1Þ BAR 40%
¼ 1þ Ma (2)
Ma k þ 1
BAR 50%
Acr 2
Table 4
Flow rates and available PRR under different BAR.
10
BAR (%) mp (kg/s) ms (kg/s) PRR (%)
Table 5
Comparison of PRR before and after geometries optimization.
PRR at 2.5 mm NXP while the maximum PRR under 50% BAR
appeared at 2.5 mm NXP. 2) PRR at each NXP was reduced with the
increasing BAR. The explanation for the phenomenon may be the
same with the analysis of the length of the constant-pressure
mixing section. The pressure at the entrance of the constant-
area mixing section is relatively lower in case the distance be-
tween the nozzle exit and the entrance of constant-area mixing
Fig. 12. Effect of NXP on PRR at different BAR. section becomes shorter, causing a lower energy cost to entrain
the secondary flow. Accordingly, for a system that is operated
regularly, NXP should be controlled in the range of 2.5 mm
of 20e25 mm constant-pressure mixing section. This is probably
to 0 mm.
because as the BAR increases, the total kinetic energy achieved in
primary flow is reduced, resulting in a shorter shock train. Since a
4.4. Optimum converging angle of constant-pressure mixing section
higher primary flow velocity is corresponding to a lower primary
flow pressure to obey the conservation law, the pressure in the
The effect of converging angle of constant-pressure mixing
beginning of the constant-area mixing section is relatively higher
section (q) on PRR was investigated to find out the optimum
with the decreasing of the primary flow rate, under a certain length
converging angle, as shown in Fig. 13. The results indicate that
of the constant-pressure mixing section before constant-area
when the BAR was 0, 8 converging angle gave the maximum of
mixing section, which means that more energy cost is needed to
27.7% PRR, and then the PRR decreased slightly with the increasing
draw the secondary flow of same rate into the constant-area mixing
of q. As the BAR increased over 10%, each curve presented the same
section.
behavior except that the peaks appeared at q ¼ 6 . For the
constant-pressure mixing section, a too low q means the constant-
4.3. Optimum nozzle exit position
pressure mixing section is inefficient and only constant-area
mixing section is involved in the ejector, which results in the
The nozzle exit position (NXP) was adjusted from 5 mm to
descent of the ejector performance. When the q is too high,
5 mm at step size of 2.5 mm, to evaluate the effect of nozzle exit
however, the horizontal kinetic energy of secondary flow in
position on PRR. The results are given in Fig. 12. It illustrates that
constant-pressure mixing section may be reduced due to the
the PRR increased slightly from 26.4% to the maximum 28% as the
shape of the section. The q, thus, should be controlled in a
NXP was changed from 5 mm to 2.5 mm, and then decreased to
reasonable range according to different conditions. Based on the
25.7% as the NXP increased further. Similar behavior of PRR was
results, 6e8 converging angle seems to be more suitable for the
found in each curve at different BAR. The differences among these
adjustable ejector used in the system, of which the possible
curves can be concluded: 1) the peaks of the PRR appeared at
explanation can be concluded that when the primary flow rate
different NXP. For instance, the curve of 0 BAR gave the maximum
decreases, as well as the exergy in primary flow, the q adopted in
normal condition becomes too large to achieve the maximum
horizontal kinetic energy of secondary flow in this section, causing
the descent of PRR.
5. Conclusions
Table 6
The optimum important geometries for the adjustable ejector.