Numerical and experimental study of steam‐water two‐phase flow through steam jet pump

Abstract

The Steam Jet Pump (SJP) is the most suitable pump for pumping radioactive and hazardous liquids because of its mechanical simplicity, no maintenance, low cost, easy construction, no leakage, simple control, and so on. The only problem with the SJP is the complexity in the transport phenomena involved in it. In this study, the void fraction in the mixing section has been measured experimentally through gamma-ray densitometry technique, and the flow through the SJP was simulated numerically. The reported numerical study of the SJP is very limited because of the complexity of the problem. In this work, three-dimensional steady state numerical simulations of the SJP were carried out using the Shah Direct-Contact Condensation (DCC) model developed previously. The experimental and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) results of void fraction have been compared at different steam inlet pressure, and it was found that they match closely with each other. The transport phenomena in the SJP were explained using the CFD results of condensation heat transfer coefficient, steam plume shape, radial temperature distributions, and contours of static pressure and steam density. This study helps in validating the Shah direct-contact condensation model and providing valuable information about the transport phenomena occurring within the mixing section of the SJP.

Pressure oscillation and steam cavity during the condensation of a submerged steam jet

“…For the steam jet pump, the maximum steam cavity length is the basis for the design of mixing section length. Reasonable design for mixing section length will raise the efficiency of steam jet pump greatly (Shah et al, 2011(Shah et al, , 2013. Thus, the research on the steam jet length is very important for the industry.…”

“…For the steam jet condensation, a lot of works have been developed for many years, like the condensation regime (Cho et al, 1998;Petrovic de With et al, 2007;Wu et al, 2009;Song and Kim, 2011), the steam jet pattern (Chun et al, 1996;Wu et al, 2009), the coefficient of heat transfer (Kim et al, 2001;Shah et al, 2010Shah et al, , 2013Patel et al, 2014) and the steam jet condensation load (Chan, 1978;Fukuda, 1982;Simpson and Chan, 1982). When steam is jetted into water and condensed by water, there will generate some pressure impulse in water pool, which is called condensation oscillation.…”

Numerical and experimental investigations on the physical characteristics of supersonic steam jet induced hydrodynamic instabilities

“…This model has been presented by Shah et al, [20] and it has been successfully validated by experimental evidences. [21][22][23][24] We simulate the supersonic steam injection inside subcooled water followed by plotting profiles for the temperature variation from the nozzle exit to its vicinity along radial and axial direction at different inlet pressure and surrounding water temperature.…”

Experimental and Numerical study for Multi-Phases flow Measurement by Microwave Cavity

“…The literature survey shows many researchers working on different methods and using different techniques such as Z.Y. Wang et al (2010) [2], Domenico Strazza et al (2011) [ 3], Ajmal Shah et al (2013) [4], Chao Tan et al (2013) [5], Marco Joseda Silva and Uwe Hampel (2013) [6], Yu.P. Filippov et al (2014) [7], El Abd (2014) [8], Zhao An et al (2014) [9], Chao Tan et al (2014) [10].…”