Energy Conversion and Management 196 (2019) 729–738

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Energy Conversion and Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enconman

A numerical contrast on the adjustable and fixed transcritical CO2 ejector T

using exergy flux distribution analysis
⁎
Yang He, Jianqiang Deng , Yafei Li, Li Ma
School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, China

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: An adjustable ejector with a needle is deemed as an effective device to improve the performance of the tran-
CFD scritical CO2 refrigeration cycle with a wide operating conditions. In this paper, a homogeneous CFD model is
Exergy built up to compare the performance of the adjustable and fixed ejectors with the same key structural sizes. By
Adjustable ejector validating the numerical results with the experimental data, the k-ε RNG and k-ε Realizable are considered to
Transcritical CO2
predict the performance of the CO2 ejector well. Furthermore, an exergy analysis model is proposed to obtain the
exergy fluxes of the primary and secondary flows are obtained, respectively. The results discover that the main
exergy transfer (interaction between the primary and secondary flows) locates in the suction chamber.
Meanwhile, the higher exergy loss is observed in the suction chamber of the adjustable ejector due to flow
separation along the needle and higher viscous dissipation of oblique shock wave, which results in 5%–11%
lower entrainment ratio than that of the fixed ejector. However, the higher velocity in the fixed ejector results in
higher friction of the wall and more intense flow separation in the diffuser which causes higher exergy loss in the
mixer and diffuser. Accordingly, the exergy efficiency of the adjustable ejector is only 0.5% lower than that of
the fixed ejector. In spite of the special case in this paper, the adjustable ejector is considered to be able to
achieve a similar exergy efficiency with the fixed ejector.

1. Background
Refrigeration systems are important necessaries in our daily life
providing the thermal comfort and fresh vegetable. But the vast appli-
cation of these systems results in the serious environment pollution and
increasing energy requirement. Traditional refrigerants with high GWP
and ODP are important greenhouse gas which have to be substituted in
the future. As a nontoxic and nonflammable nature gas, CO2 with low
GWP and ODP is a remarkable substitute refrigerant. However, the
main weakness of the CO2 cycle is low performance which is mainly
attributed to the high loss through the expansion valve [1]. The ap-
plication of an ejector in the CO2 cycle has been proven to be an ef-
fective approach to reduce the expansion loss [2].
Ejector is a simple device without movable parts endowing the low
cost and high reliability. An ejector popularly consists of five parts:
primary nozzle, secondary flow inlet, suction chamber, mixer and dif-
fuser. In a transcritical CO2 ejector refrigeration cycle (TCER), the su-
percritical CO2 from the gas cooler is expanded and accelerated through
the nozzle to a sonic/supersonic speed generating a low-pressure region
in the suction chamber which draws the subcritical CO2 from the eva-
porator. The two flows mix in the mixer accompanying with mass,
momentum and energy exchange. Then the mixed flow is pressurized in
the diffuser to a pressure above the evaporating pressure. By in-
troduction of the ejector, part of high pressure energy is recovered and
the expansion loss is reduced. Sun and Ma [3] analyzed the ejector cycle
with CO2 based on the second law of thermodynamics and reported a
theoretical 25% exergy saving compared with the conventional vapor
compression cycle with expansion valve. Later, the experimental ana-
lysis by Lucas and Koehler [4] verified the theoretical improvement
achieving an improved COP of 17% higher than that of the expansion
valve cycle. However, the performance of TCER varies obviously with
different gas cooler pressures and an adjustable ejector is necessary for
the system working under wide working conditions [5]. The adjustable
ejector and fixed ejector with cylindrical structure are illustrated with
2D schematic diagram in Fig. 1. Obviously, with the variable position of
the needle in the nozzle, the throat area of the primary flow can be
regulated to change the suitable working conditions of the ejector [6–9]
and thus the high-efficiency working conditions for CO2 cycle is ex-
tended. The corresponding experiments about the adjustable ejector by
Liu et al. [10] declared 60% system performance improvement com-
pared with the conventional vapor compression cycle. As the key de-
vice, the ejector has a great influence on the performance of the CO2

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: dengjq@mail.xjtu.edu.cn (J. Deng).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2019.06.031
Received 27 November 2018; Received in revised form 7 May 2019; Accepted 15 June 2019
Available online 22 June 2019
0196-8904/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Y. He, et al.
Nomenclature
Ex exergy flux, W
h enthalpy, J·kg−1
k thermal conduction, W·m−1·K−1
m mass flow rate, kg·s−1
p pressure, Pa
Pr Prandtl number
r radial position, m
T temperature, K
s Entropy, W·K−1·m−3
u axial velocity component, m·s−1

u velocity vector, m·s−1
v radial velocity component, m·s−1
x axial position, m
cycle and the model development and optimization investigation of the
ejector has gotten increasing attentions.
The earliest 1D ejector model was proposed by Korhauser in 1990
which has been widely used and developed in many published papers to
assist the analysis and improvement of the ejector and cycles [11,12].
These 1D models handle the losses from friction, mixing, and even
expansion wave with a series of empirical coefficients which depends
greatly on the ejector dimensions and operating conditions. By ad-
justing these empirical coefficients carefully, 1D ejector model could
achieve good agreement with the experimental data. Liu et al. [13] did
a valuable work to achieve a set of empirical equations utilizing many
experimental data to compute the empirical coefficients according to
the operating conditions and structural dimensions. Zheng et al. [14]
also got a set of correlations for the empirical coefficients calculation
based on 1D distribution model. However, 1D model is not sufficient to
describe the complicated flow in a CO2 ejector involving the strong
coupling of the transcritical, transonic, phase change and mixing and so
on. In addition, 1D model couldn’t reflect the influence of some para-
meters such as the angle, distance between nozzle exit and mixer inlet,
and especially the needle.
Relatively, numerical simulation has become a popular way for the
study on the CO2 ejector which can provide the detail flow field. Using
CFD technology, Bulinski et al. [15] compared the homogeneous and
heterogeneous models of a CO2 two-phase ejector by supplementing a
transport equation between gas and liquid phase into a general CFD
model. The heterogeneous model presents better prediction but with a
longer computing time and even probably unstable solution. For the
phase change occurring in a CO2 ejector, Nakagawa et al. [16] reported
Fig. 1. The schematics of two types of ejectors: (a) fixed ejector; (b) adjustable
ejector.
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Energy Conversion and Management 196 (2019) 729–738
Greek symbols
τ stress tensor, J·m−3
ξ specific exergy, J·kg−1
Φ viscous heat dissipation, W·m−3
φ entrainment ratio
Subscripts
0 reference value
b back pressure
eff effective value including turbulence
in inlet
o outlet
p primary flow
s secondary flow
t turbulence term
that there was non-equilibrium phase change process in the CO2 ejector
according to their experiments and simulation. Nevertheless, Yazdani
et al. [17] coupled the non-equilibrium phase change model into a CFD
model and the simulation showed almost the same pressure distribution
with the homogeneous model except for a stronger expansion process
downstream the nozzle exit. Similarly, Colarossi et al. [18] pointed out
that the non-equilibrium effects could be negligible compared with the
effects of turbulence models according to their numerical analysis. Thus
the introduction of the heterogeneous and non-equilibrium calculation
contributes not very significantly to the CFD model but lead to a long
computing time and even no solution. Smolka et al. [19] creatively
developed a homogeneous CFD model with a modified enthalpy-based
energy equation to simulate the two-phase CO2 in the ejector. By this
modification, the two-phase flow can be handled as a single-phase flow
without the transport or phase-change equations. The results show that
the pressure distributions agree well with the experimental results and
the error of the mass flow rate is below 20%. Using this CFD model, the
optimization on the ejector dimensions was also done by coupling this
homogeneous model with optimization algorithm [20]. Later, this
model was applied successfully to analyze the multi-ejector system
[21,22]. Recently, a reduced-order model was developed by them based
on the CFD simulation results under many operating conditions [23].
With this reduced-order model, flow field of an ejector with fixed
geometry could be obtained with negligible time effort which may re-
place the 1D model in the ejector system analysis. Based on the same
assumption of homogeneous equilibrium flow, Lucas et al. [24] mod-
ified the continuity equation by expressing the density as the function
of pressure and enthalpy. The model is solved just like the single-phase
case in OpenFOAM software. The pressure recovery is predicted with
the error below 20% under a fixed secondary mass flow rate.
The study on the irreversible loss in the ejector is helpful for its
optimization. Exergy analysis accounts both the quality and quantity of
various energy forms which makes it an effective approach to discover
the irreversible loss in a thermodynamic system or device [25]. Cur-
rently, some exergy analysis has been applied on the ejector optimi-
zation. Considering the internal processes in an ejector, Arbel et al. [26]
defined irreversible losses caused by mixing, kinetic energy losses and
normal shock wave using exergy calculation. This study addressed that
the entropy production was equivalent to performance losses and
minimizing entropy production was an effective way to optimize the
operating conditions and geometric structure of the ejector. Pallares
et al. [27] supplemented the differential equations of entropy in a CFD
model to obtain the local entropy generation. The authors treated the
entropy generation as four types: viscous dissipation and heat transfer
in mean and fluctuation terms. The study showed that the fluctuating
viscous dissipation caused by shear layer and the shock wave trains
Y. He, et al. Energy Conversion and Management 196 (2019) 729–738

accounts for 75% of the entropy increase. Based on the CFD simulation Replacing the classic temperature-based energy formulation, en-
results, Banasiak et al. [28] proposed an original factor considering the thalpy should be solved as a user-define scalar (UDS) with Eq. (7) in
exergy analysis to evaluate the contribution of the local irreversibility Fluent and the energy equation is transformed to
on the total exergy efficiency which was used for the optimization of 
the diameter and length of the mixer. Lamberts et al. [29] derived the  μ ⎛  u ·u ⎞
∇ ·(ρ u h) = ∇ ·⎛ t ∇h⎞ + ∇ ·⎜k∇T − ρ u +ϕ
2 ⎟
⎜ ⎟

transport equation for the mean-flow total exergy to quantitatively ⎝ Prt ⎠ ⎝ ⎠

study the transport phenomena within the ejector. With this work, the ⏟ term
diffusion ⏟term
source (9)
position of the exergy losses was identified and the new local para- The entrainment ratio calculated by Eq. (10) is used to evaluate the
meters for energy transfer and irreversibility were defined. global performance of the ejector.
As authors know, the adjustable ejector with a needle was con-
ms
sidered to be of low efficiency due to its larger friction area in the φ=
mp (10)
nozzle [8,30]. But the corresponding quantized analysis on the higher
loss of the adjustable ejector is still lacking. Therefore, a numerical
study coupled with exergy analysis on an adjustable CO2 ejector in a 2.2. Exergy model
TCER is carried out to reveal the effect of the introduction of the needle.
Due to the small size and the horizontal arrangement of the ejector,
2. Ejector model the potential energy generated by the gravity is almost unchanged
compared with the pressure and kinetic energy. Thus the potential
2.1. Governing equations energy is neglected for the study of the ejector. Considering the con-
version between pressure and kinetic energy in the ejector, the specific
In this work, a 2D symmetric CFD model is implemented in com- exergy of a stream may be defined as
mercial software Fluent V14.0. The similar assumptions with Smolka 
et al. [19] are made as following: u ·u
ξ = h − T0 s +
2 (11)
a) The flow in the ejector is homogeneous with the same velocity and where T0 represents the environmental conditions which is 298.15 K in
properties for the gas and liquid phases. this study. Then the exergy flux through a surface S can be computed
b) Non-equilibrium is negligible. with Eq. (12) [29].
c) The wall of the ejector is adiabatic.
Ex = ∬S ρ 
u ξ · n dS (12)
Generally, steady 2D axisymmetric CFD model built-in Fluent for 
the homogeneous flow simulation includes the continuity, momentum where n is the normal vector to the surface S with the direction
and energy equations as follows [31]. pointing to low exergy or the inside of the control volume.


∇ ·(ρ u ) = 0 (3) 2.3. Simulation setup


∇ ·(ρ u ) = −∇p + ∇ ·τeff (4) Axisymmetric ejector model is built with structured grids. For the
simulation, pressure-inlet boundary condition is applied to primary and
 secondary inlet with fixed enthalpy values. Pressure-outlet boundary
⎡ ⎛ u · u ⎞⎤ 
∇·⎢ρ u ⎜h + = ∇·(k eff ∇T ) + (τeff · u )
2 ⎟⎥ (5)
condition is applied to the ejector outlet. The adiabatic condition and
⎣ ⎝ ⎠ ⎦ no-slip is set for the wall and the axis condition for the axis. For the
where τeff is the effective viscous stress tensor given by Eq. (6), and keff enthalpy at the ejector outlet, the value is gradually regulated with Eq.
is the effective thermal conduction including the turbulence influence (13) during the solution based on the energy conversion.
which is decided by the turbulence model. m p h p,in + ms hs,in
ho =
m p + ms (13)
⎡ ∂u ∂u j ⎞ 2  ⎤
τij,eff = (μ + μt ) ⎢ ⎜⎛ i + ⎟ − δij (∇ · u ) ⎥ (i, j= 1, 2)
∂x j ∂x i 3 (6) In Fluent, segregated-implicit is chosen to solve these governing
⎣⎝ ⎠ ⎦
equations. The pressure and velocity are solved using pressure-coupled
With the model above, pressure and temperature are solved as the solver and enthalpy is solved as UDS equation. Fluid properties such as
independent variables for other properties calculation which is not density, thermal conductivity, viscosity, quality and sound speed are
suitable for the two-phase flow simulation. Enthalpy and pressure are updated as the functions of pressure and enthalpy using REFPROP 8.0
applicable independent variables to determine the state of both single- Library. To reduce the time consumption, the Look-up table interpola-
phase and two-phase CO2. Thus an energy equation based on enthalpy tion [32,33] is implemented to obtain the property values. In the solver,
value should be derived first from Eq. (5). Physically, the diffusion term the Coupled algorithm is applied and all the governing equations are
(first term on the right side) in Eq. (5) consists of two parts: the first is discretized with second-order upwind scheme. The numerical solution
the energy (enthalpy) transfer caused by turbulence and the second is is considered to be converged when the residual for each equation is
the heat conduction due to temperature difference. According to below 10−5 and the changes of the mass flow rates are negligible.
Smolka et al.[19], the energy equation could be expressed as,
 3. Results and discussion
⎡ ⎛ u · u ⎞⎤ μ
∇ ·⎢ρ u ⎜h + = ∇ ·⎛ t ∇h⎞ + ∇ ·(k∇T ) + ϕ
2 ⎟⎥
⎜ ⎟

⎝ Prt ⎠ (7)
⎣ ⎝ ⎠⎦ 3.1. Experiment introduction
where ϕ represents the viscous heat dissipation which is calculated by
The schematic diagram and photo of the experimental setup are
[27],
shown in Fig. 2. The gas phase CO2 from the separator is compressed by
∂u 2 1 ∂rv ⎞2⎤ ⎛ ∂u ∂v ⎞2 2  the compressor to be supercritical with high pressure and temperature.
ϕ = (μ + μt ) ⎧2 ⎡ ⎛ ⎞ + ⎛ + + − (∇ · u )2⎫ Then CO2 is cooled in the gas cooler by water and expands through the
⎢
⎨ ⎣ ⎝ ∂x ⎠ ⎝ r ∂ r ⎠ ⎥ ⎝ ∂r ∂x ⎠ 3 ⎬ (8)
⎩ ⎦ ⎭
nozzle of the ejector generating a low-pressure region to entrain the

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Y. He, et al.
Fig. 2. Experimental setup introduction: (a) Schematic diagram; (b) Photo.
low-pressure CO2 from the evaporator. Two flows are mixed in the
mixer and pressurized in the diffuser to a pressure above the evapor-
ating pressure. Then the mixing flow is heated in the second evaporator
(evaporator 2) by water to adjust the dryness of the mixing flow which
is separated into saturated gas and liquid in the separator. The gas from
the separator flow into the compressor. The liquid is throttled in the
expansion valve to achieve a low temperature and is heated in the
evaporator by water. The detail parameters of the components can be
found in our previous work [6]. In this experiment, the flow rate of the
water through the heat exchangers can be regulated by the volumetric
flow meter to change the heat input or output and thus the working
condition of the system is changed. The compressor speed is controlled
by the frequency converter. Both the expansion valve opening and
needle position in the ejector can be precisely regulated with the
stepper motors. All these controllable variables are used to change the
primary pressure (pressure in the gas cooler), secondary pressure
(pressure in the evaporator) and backpressure (pressure in the
Fig. 3. The detail structural dimensions of the adjustable ejector (mm) [6].
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Energy Conversion and Management 196 (2019) 729–738
separator) of the ejector.
The temperature of CO2 is measured by thermocouple with the ac-
curacy of ± 0.5 °C. The pressure is measured with EJA-530A with the
accuracy of ± 0.075% of the full scale. In the experiment, the range of
the pressure transducer for gas cooler pressure is 0–15 MPa and thus the
accuracy of the primary pressure measurement is ± 11.25 kPa. The
ranges of the pressure transducers for the secondary pressure and
backpressure of the ejector are 0–6 MPa and both the absolute ac-
curacies are ± 4.5 kPa. The mass flow rate of CO2 is measured with
FC300 with accuracy of ± 0.1% of the full scale. The range for primary
mass flow rate measurement is set to be 0–350 kg/h and the absolute
accuracy is ± 0.097 g·s−1. The range for the secondary mass flow rate
measurement is set to be 0–250 kg/h and the accuracy is ± 0.069 g·s−1.
To ensure the reliability, each experiment is repeated twice and the
mean value of two measurements are used to validate the CFD model.
3.2. Mesh generation
The mesh generations are handled with ANSYS ICEM-CFD software
which provides advanced geometry acquisition, mesh generation, and
mesh optimization tools for the CFD simulation in FLUENT. The 2D
axisymmetric domain is applied to the ejector. The detail ejector geo-
metrical dimensions and experimental setup can be found in our pre-
vious paper [6] and the detail structural dimensions are illustrated in
Fig. 3. According to the analysis by Besagni et al. [34], the initial grid
point spacing is set as y+ ≈ 40 in ICEM-CFD software. During the so-
lution, the mesh is refined on the basis of the pressure gradient. After
the grid independence study with entrainment ratio comparison in
Fig. 4, the final grid number is determined to be approximately
1.4 × 105 quadrilateral elements which is suitable for all the turbulence
models used in this paper.
3.3. Turbulence model and model validation
Turbulence model is an important factor for ejector numerical in-
vestigation which results in very different flow structure [35]. Five
turbulence models are tested and compared: k-ε Standard, k-ε RNG, k-ε
Realizable, k-ω Standard and k-ω SST. The standard wall function is
employed for the k-ε RNG, k-ε RNG and k-ε Realizable which was
suggested by Besagni et al. [34]. For the k-ω Standard and k-ω SST
models, the near wall function is not needed because the flow close to
the wall is underlined in their mathematical structure. With the
boundary conditions listed in Table 1, and the needle tip of 4 mm into
the suction chamber, the flow fields of five different turbulence models
are compared in Fig. 5. As shown in Fig. 5, k-ε Standard and k-ω
Standard turbulence models present relatively large vertex in the suc-
tion chamber before the mixer which reduces the flow area of sec-
ondary fluid leading to relatively low mass flow rate. k-ε RNG shows the
very similar flow structure with that of the k-ε Realizable except for its
Y. He, et al. Energy Conversion and Management 196 (2019) 729–738

Fig. 4. Grid independence study. Fig. 6. Working characters predicted by different turbulence models.

Table 1
. Boundary conditions set for the simulation.
Boundary Pressure/MPa Temperature/K Enthalpy/J·kg−1

Primary inlet 8.686 303.70 280,540

Secondary inlet 3.773 290.13 452,460
Ejector outlet 4.240 280.75 –

Fig. 7. Operating character comparison of the fixed and adjustable ejectors.

Fig. 5. Flow structure analysis in terms of different turbulence models.
relatively high jetting velocity of the primary fluid leaving the nozzle.
Comparatively, k-ω SST model contributes to a slightly larger vertex in
the suction chamber and hence gets a slightly smaller secondary mass
flow rate than that of k-ε RNG and k-ε Realizable. All the simulation
results with these five turbulence models illustrate a vertex in the
suction chamber due to too large converge angle. Additionally, flow
separation is observed against the wall of the diffuser by all the tur-
bulence models and even a vortex generates according to k-ω Standard
and k-ω SST models. This flow separation is attributed to too large di-
vergence angle (14°) of the diffuser.
The numerical results from five turbulence models are validated
with 8 cases of experiments. The simulations reveal that all these tur-
bulence models have the same prediction accuracy with maximal error
of 8% for primary mass flow rate which is not listed in detail. The
secondary mass flow rate comparison is illustrated in Table 2. The re-
sults show that k-ε RNG and k-ε Realizable have the same accuracies
of < 14% while the maximal error of 23% for k-ω SST. It’s worth noting
that the ejector with all the operating conditions in Table 2 works under

Table 2
. Comparison of the ms (g·s−1) of the simulations and experiments.
Working condition Exp k-ε RNG k-ε Realizable k-ω SST k-ε Standard k-ω Standard

pp/MPa Tp/K ps/MPa Ts/K pb/MPa ms ms error ms error ms error ms error ms error

1 7.88 303.85 3.83 290.69 4.41 9.35 8.13 −13.01% 8.05 −13.90% 7.28 −22.12% 7.39 −20.95% 7.64 −18.31%
2 8.12 305.09 3.77 290.73 4.36 9.39 8.37 −10.83% 8.32 −11.35% 7.77 −17.20% 7.61 −18.93% 7.98 −15.02%
3 8.39 306.27 3.76 290.60 4.30 9.42 8.85 −6.06% 8.79 −6.66% 8.67 −7.95% 7.99 −15.20% 8.15 −13.50%
4 8.68 307.35 3.74 290.32 4.24 9.53 9.17 −3.76% 9.11 −4.46% 8.46 −11.27% 7.95 −16.57% 8.30 −12.89%
5 8.94 308.01 3.73 290.09 4.17 9.65 9.41 −2.44% 9.39 −2.73% 9.04 −6.30% 8.13 −15.75% 8.07 −16.33%
6 9.24 308.30 3.61 290.39 4.00 9.73 9.70 −0.30% 9.53 −2.09% 8.80 −9.54% 8.21 −15.62% 8.34 −14.28%
7 9.14 306.90 3.42 290.17 3.73 8.76 8.94 2.07% 8.92 1.77% 8.36 −4.50% 7.03 −19.78% 7.38 −15.71%
8 8.84 304.10 3.05 291.81 3.28 7.51 7.93 5.53% 7.85 4.55% 7.01 −6.69% 6.14 −18.20% 6.21 −17.29%

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Y. He, et al.
Fig. 8. Flow fields comparison under subcritical mode pb = 4.0 MPa: (a) pressure; (b) Mach number; (b) specific exergy.
subcritical mode and all the secondary mass flow rates from k-ω SST are
lower than that of k-ε RNG and k-ε Realizable. For the k-ε Standard, the
deviation of the simulation results and experimental data is above 15%
and the maximal error is about 21%. Additionally, the deviation of the
k-ω Standard is primarily above 13% and lower than 18.31%. There-
fore, k-ω Standard and k-ε Standard are not suitable for the simulation
study in this paper due to their higher errors. Besides, as shown in
Table 2, the proposed CFD model underestimates the secondary mass
flow rate in general.
Then the simulations with k-ε RNG, k-ε Realizable and k-ω SST
models are carried out for the ejector under the overall operating
condition (critical mode with constant entrainment ratio and subcritical
mode with variable value). The results show that all these three tur-
bulence models compute almost the same primary mass flow rates. As
shown in Fig. 6, the k-ε RNG and k-ε Realizable predict almost the same
entrainment ratio and the slightly low values are from k-ε Realizable.
Relatively, the entrainment ratio predicted by k-ω SST is low under
subcritical mode and high under critical mode while accompanied with
the low critical back pressure (i.e. the transition point of subcritical
mode and critical mode). This is considered to be caused by the higher
loss predicted by k-ω SST.
3.4. Effect of the needle on the flow fields
According to the analysis above, both k-ε RNG and k-ε Realizable
can predict the global performance correctly, namely entrainment ratio,
with similar precision. Importantly, numerical results reveals that the
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Energy Conversion and Management 196 (2019) 729–738
two turbulence models present similar flow structure in the ejector
under the overall operating condition. In the following analysis, only
the k-ε RNG is employed.
To study the effect of the needle on the performance of the ejector, a
fixed ejector with the same geometrical dimensions, especially the same
nozzle throat area and nozzle inlet area is designed which provides the
same motive power with the adjustable ejector. Under the same pri-
mary and secondary inlet pressures and temperatures, the overall op-
erating conditions with variable back pressures are applied to both the
fixed and adjustable ejectors. Numerical simulation shows that ad-
justable and fixed ejectors own the approximately same primary mass
flow rates with the deviation of only 0.5%. As illustrated in Fig. 7, the
needle decreases the entrainment ratio obviously. The negative effect
from the needle is enhanced gradually with the increasing back pres-
sure. About 5% reduction of the entrainment ratio is observed under the
critical mode with low back pressure and this reduction increase gra-
dually to 11% under the subcritical mode. Furthermore, the critical
back pressure is decreased from 3.65 MPa to 3.55 MPa with the in-
troduction of the needle. In the following, the flow fields comparison
and exergy analysis are carried out to discuss the effect of the needle on
the ejector performance.
Fig. 8 shows the flow fields of the adjustable and fixed ejectors
under subcritical mode with the back pressure of 4.0 MPa. Two kinds of
ejectors present the similar pressure distributions: sharp depressuriza-
tion and speed up near the nozzle throat; a series oblique shock wave
downstream the nozzle exit due to higher primary pressure at the
nozzle exit than the secondary pressure; a slight pressure and speed
Y. He, et al. Energy Conversion and Management 196 (2019) 729–738

Fig. 9. Flow fields comparison under critical mode pb = 3.5 MPa: (a) pressure; (b) Mach number; (b) specific exergy.

Fig. 10. Exergy flux calculation method of the primary and secondary flows.

decreases in the mixer because of the friction of the wall; and pressure
recovery and deceleration in the diffuser. By comparison, the velocity of
the primary flow in the suction chamber and mixer of the adjustable
ejector are slightly lower than that in the fixed one which leads to a
lower velocity differences between the primary and secondary flows.
Therefore, the existence of the needle weakens the expansion of the
primary flow and hence reduces its entrainment effect in the suction
chamber. More importantly, the oblique shock wave chain in the suc-
tion chamber of the adjustable ejector is obviously shorter than that of
the fixed ejector which is thought to be attributed to the faster energy
dissipation. As shown in Fig. 8(a), the first oblique shock wave down-
stream the nozzle in the adjustable ejector achieves relatively higher
pressure which means a lower expansion intensity. But the needle
provides a larger annular flow area for the oblique shock wave chain.
The comprehensive effect of the lower expansion intensity and larger
flow area results in a higher energy dissipation in the adjustable ejector.
Additionally, the Mach number distributions in Fig. 8(b) reveal that
flow separation occurs along the needle increasing the energy loss
further. The dashed line in Fig. 8(b) represents the flow with Ma = 1
which discovers that the velocity in the adjustable ejector is reduced
faster. Fig. 8(c) shows that the specific exergy of the primary flow in the
mixer of the adjustable ejector is lower than that of the fixed ejector due
to its higher energy dissipation. Besides, a small vortex generates up-
stream the mixer of the adjustable ejector which decreases the sec-
ondary flow area while no vortex is observed in the fixed ejector.
Fig. 9 illustrates the flow fields for the two ejectors under critical
mode with back pressure of 3.5 MPa. As shown in Fig. 9(b), for both the
adjustable and fixed ejectors, the mixed flow achieves the supersonic

735
Y. He, et al.
Fig. 11. Exergy flux along the axis: (a) subcritical mode with back pressure of
4 MPa; (b) critical mode with back pressure of 3.5 MPa; (c) total exergy loss
distribution.
speed before the diffuser which hinders the influence of the back
pressure on the flow field upstream the diffuser and hence makes the
entrainment ratio constant under critical mode. With the mixed flow
going into the diffuser, a normal shock wave is generated and the
pressure is increased acutely as shown in Fig. 9(a). However, as ad-
dressed in the published papers about the thermodynamic investigation
of the ejector, the critical mode is generally assumed to occur with the
blocking of the secondary at the inlet of the mixer which is different
with the numerical result in Fig. 9. Two reasons are for this phenomena.
The first is the small mixer diameter in this paper leading to a low
secondary mass flow and thus the mixing flow can keep supersonic until
the diffuser [17]. The other reason is the under-expanded of the pri-
mary flow in the suction chamber due to no divergent section in the
nozzle. Consequently, the primary flow could not supply sufficient
power to drive the secondary flow to sonic speed at the inlet of the
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Energy Conversion and Management 196 (2019) 729–738
mixer. As shown in Fig. 9(c), an obvious flow separation is observed in
the diffusers of both the adjustable and fixed ejectors which results in a
low critical back pressure. Furthermore, the flow separation in the fixed
ejector is more serious because of its higher velocity penetrating into
the diffuser. Similar to the subcritical mode, more energy loss for the
adjustable ejector under the critical mode is caused by the oblique
shock wave in the suction chamber and flow separation along the
needle. Besides, numerical results reveal that the vortex of the sec-
ondary flow in the suction chamber becomes smaller with the de-
creasing back pressure thanks to the increasing primary flow velocity
and entrainment effect. Consequently, the reduction of the secondary
mass flow rate by the needle is decreased from subcritical mode to
critical mode as addressed in Fig. 7.
According to the analysis above, increasing energy loss and de-
creasing entrainment ratio caused by the needle is the comprehensive
effects of the enhanced viscous dissipation of the oblique shock wave
train, flow separation along the needle and the friction of the needle.
Detailed irreversible loss study is implemented with exergy analysis in
the following section.
3.5. Exergy analysis
To simply the analysis, the primary and secondary flows are divided
according to the mass conservation of each other. The dividing line is
just illustrated in Fig. 10. The part close to the axis represents the
primary flow region and the other is the secondary flow region. As
authors know, exergy exchange is caused by heat conduction from
temperature difference and velocity transfer from viscous shear [29].
Generally, these two processes don’t occur on the flow direction. Thus,
exergy is considered to flow along the streamline and transfer on the
normal direction. The cross section for the exergy flux calculation is
also shown in Fig. 10. It’s worth noting that the vortex is a dead zone for
the exergy flux because of no exergy going through it to the ejector
outlet. Hence, the exergy flux calculation should avoid the vortex.
Fig. 11 characters the exergy flux distribution in the two ejectors.
The axis position for the secondary flow inlet is described by the outer
wall of the primary nozzle which provides the same beginning positions
of the mixing of the two flows. In an ejector, the exergy rising of the
secondary flow owes to the energy transfer from the primary flow. As
shown in Fig. 11(a) and (b), the exergy losses in both primary nozzle
and secondary flow inlet are comparatively very low which can be
negligible. The exergy distribution characteristic depicts that main ex-
ergy transfer from primary flow to secondary flow occurs in suction
chamber and the upstream part of the mixer. Compared with the fixed
ejector, the exergy flux of the primary flow in the adjustable ejector
decreases larger and more rapidly in this main exergy transfer region
due to the higher exergy loss. For the secondary flow, the two ejectors
present similar exergy flux distribution performance and the main dif-
ference are contributed to their different mass flow rates. Besides, lower
secondary mass flow rate of the adjustable ejector requires a shorter
exergy transfer process. This exergy exchange process could be defined
as the mixing process of the primary and secondary flows. Then the
exergy flux of the secondary flow keeps approximately constant in the
downstream part of the mixer while the exergy flux of the primary
decreases slowly to overcome the viscous dissipation and friction loss of
the wall. In this region (may be named as mixed region), the primary
and secondary flows have mixed completely possessing the same ve-
locities (Figs. 8(b) and 9(b)) and the interaction of the two flows is
insignificant leading to a placid total exergy loss distribution. Before
going into the diffuser, the exergy flux of the secondary flow begins
reducing due to the adverse pressure gradient and friction close to the
wall. The exergy flux of the primary flow begins decreasing after the
secondary flow to make up the irreversible loss. It should be noted that
a normal shock wave generates at the inlet of the diffuser under the
critical mode which hinders the influence of the adverse pressure gra-
dient on the flow field in the mixer. Thereby, the starting position of
Y. He, et al. Energy Conversion and Management 196 (2019) 729–738

Table 3
Local exergy loss in the ejector.
Back pressure/ MPa 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 3.9 4.0

Nozzle/J Adjustable 1.57 1.49 1.58 1.65 1.67 1.59

Fixed 0.09 0.09 0.09 0.10 0.08 0.09
Secondary flow inlet/J Adjustable 0.0186 0.0171 0.0162 0.0157 0.0145 0.0127
Fixed 0.0191 0.0178 0.0168 0.0160 0.0156 0.0140
Suction chamber/J Adjustable 169.59 165.67 180.96 191.14 200.27 213.73
Fixed 129.46 128.02 136.33 137.56 140.86 143.81
Mixer/J Adjustable 152.22 166.53 148.40 172.89 166.74 126.86
Fixed 211.09 201.34 169.91 184.96 159.38 147.32
Normal shock wave/J Adjustable 50.08 34.99 – – – –
Fixed 52.14 35.47 10.62 – – –
Diffuser/J Adjustable 355.25 313.15 270.50 211.63 171.71 158.47
Fixed 368.17 329.91 286.43 242.51 226.75 187.50
Exergy efficiency Adjustable 88.29% 89.33% 90.32% 90.91% 91.42% 91.97%
Fixed 88.36% 89.39% 90.58% 91.06% 91.76% 92.45%

exergy flux decreasing in the diffuser of the critical mode locates after
that of the subcritical mode as shown in Fig. 11(a) and (b). Further-
more, the normal shock wave brings about a relatively sharp exergy loss
at the very start of the diffuser under the critical mode. Afterward, si-
milar exergy flux distribution to the mixed region is found in the dif-
fuser: the exergy flux of the secondary keeps almost constant and the
exergy flux of the primary flow decreases to supplement the exergy loss.
Fig. 11(c) shows the total exergy loss distribution in the ejector except
for the nozzle and secondary flow inlet. Compared with the fixed
ejector, higher exergy loss of the adjustable ejector locates in the mixing
region (suction chamber and upstream part of the mixer) which results
in the lower entrainment effect (or entrainment ratio) of the adjustable
ejector. However, higher exergy loss occurs in the mixer and diffuser of
the fixed ejector especially for the ejector under critical mode. It is
because of the oversize divergent angle of the diffuser in this paper
which causes the larger flow separation in the fixed ejector as presented
in Figs. 8 and 9. It is predictable that higher divergent angle of the
diffuser should be used in the adjustable than that in the fixed ejector.
Additionally, the simulation reveals that the most violent exergy loss in
the ejector is imputed to the normal shock wave.
The exergy losses for the all parts of the adjustable and fixed ejector
under the overall operating conditions are computed in Table 3. The
results reveal that the main exergy loss is located in suction chamber,
mixer and diffuser. For the nozzle, higher exergy loss in the adjustable
ejector is only because of the friction of the needle which increase the
exergy loss from about 0.1 J to 1.5 J. In the secondary flow inlet, the
exergy loss for the fixed ejector is slightly higher just due to the larger
mass flow rate. Complicated thermodynamic process in the suction
chamber including oblique shock wave, viscous shear, flow separation
results in the complex loss mechanisms. The data shows that the exergy
loss in the suction chamber is larger under the subcritical mode than
that under the critical mode. By comparison, the needle induces
30%–50% higher exergy loss in the suction chamber in spite of the
lower secondary mass flow rate. As discussed above, the velocity in the
mixer of the adjustable ejector is lower than that of the fixed ejector
leading to a lower exergy loss. It is because that the main energy loss in
the mixer is caused by the friction of the wall and the viscous shear
dissipation is smaller due to the lower velocity difference between the
primary and secondary flows. For the ejectors used in this paper, the
largest exergy loss is found in the diffuser which is caused by the flow
separation in the diffuser especially for the critical mode. And the ex-
ergy loss in the diffuser decreases with the increasing back pressure due
to the weakening flow separation. Besides, the normal shock wave
under the critical mode generates an obvious exergy loss which is about
6% of the total exergy loss. The exergy efficiency of the two ejectors are
obtained in Table 3. With the increase of the back pressure, the exergy
efficiency increases linearly. It may be attributed to the improper
structural design for the critical mode results in too large exergy loss in
the diffuser which also leads to the very low critical pressure. For the
ejectors used in this paper, the adjustable ejector presents about 0.5%
lower exergy efficiency than that of the fixed ejector. Under the critical
mode, two ejectors achieve almost the same exergy efficiency. Besides,
exergy difference is valuable rather than the exergy value itself. Thus
the exergy efficiency listed in Table 3 don’t mean the very high oper-
ating performance of the ejector.
4. Conclusion
In this paper, an enthalpy-based energy equation is built up and
integrated in the Fluent to simulate the flow field in a transcritical CO2
ejector. With the experimental data, k-ε RNG and k-ε Realizable are
validated to be suitable for the CO2 ejector simulation. Meanwhile, an
exergy analysis model is proposed to obtain the exergy flux distribution
in the ejector. Using this numerical model, a designed adjustable ejector
with a needle and the corresponding fixed ejector with the same di-
mensions are compared numerically. The results reveal that higher
exergy loss is observed in the suction chamber of the adjustable ejector
which decreases the entrainment effect of the primary flow resulting in
a 5%–11% lower entrainment ratio. However, lower exergy losses are
obtained in the mixer and diffuser of the adjustable ejector than that of
the fixed ejector which make the adjustable ejector presents only 0.5%
lower exergy efficiency. In spite of the especial case, this study prove
that the adjustable ejector can obtain comparable exergy efficiency
with the fixed ejector.
Declaration of Competing Interest
None.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the
National Natural Science Foundation of China under the Grant No:
51676148 and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central
Universities of China under the Grant No. xzy012019032.
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