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

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe 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. © 2013 Curtin University of Technology and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.