• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.29 no.5 s.236
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• pp.554-560
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• 2005

A new method to improve the efficiency of a hydrogen fuel cell system was introduced by using variable sonic/supersonic ejectors. To obtain the variable area ratio of the nozzle throat to ejector throat which controls the mass flow rate of the suction flow, the ejectors used a movable cylinder inserted into a conventional ejector-diffuser system. Experiments were carried out to understand the flow characteristics inside the variable ejector system. The secondary mass flow rates of subsonic and supersonic ejectors were examined by varying the operating pressure ratio and area ratio. The results showed that the variable sonic/supersonic ejectors could control the recirculation ratio by changing the throat area ratio, and also showed that the recirculation ratio increased fur the variable sonic ejector and decreased for the variable supersonic ejector, as the throat area ratio increases.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.26 no.5
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• pp.640-647
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• 2002

An experimental investigation or the sonic and supersonic air ejector systems has beer conducted to develop design and prediction programs for practical ejector system. Five different primary nozzles have been employed to operate the ejector systems in the ranges of low and moderate operating pressure ratios. The ejector operating pressure ratio for the secondary chamber pressure to be minimized has a strong influence of the ejector throat ratio. The pressure inside the ejector diffuser is not dependent on the primary nozzle configurations employed but only a function of the ejector operating pressure ratio. Experimental results show that a supersonic ejector system is more desirable for obtaining high vacuum pressure of the secondary chamber than a sonic ejector system.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.24 no.8
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• pp.1128-1138
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• 2000

Pumping action in ejector systems is generally achieved through the mixing of a high-velocity and high-energy stream with a lower-velocity and lower-energy stream within a duct. The design and performance evaluation of the ejector systems has developed as a combination of scale-model experiments, empiricism and theoretical analyses applicable only to very simplified configurations, because of the generic complexity of the flow phenomena. In order to predict the detailed performance characteristics of such systems, the flow phenomena throughout the operating regimes of the ejector system should be fully understood. This paper presents the computational results for the two-dimensional supersonic ejector system with a second throat. The numerical simulations are based on a fully implicit finite volume scheme of the compressible Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes equation in a domain that extends from the stagnation chamber to the diffuser exit. For a wide range of the operating pressure ratio the flow field inside the ejector system is investigated in detail. The results show that the supersonic ejector systems have an optimal throat area for the operating pressure ratio to be minimized.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.11b
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• pp.646-651
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• 2001

The present study is an experimental work of the sonic/supersonic air ejector-diffuser system. The pressure-time dependence in the secondary chamber of this ejector system is measured to investigate the steady operation of the ejector system. Six different primary nozzles of two sonic nozzles, two supersonic nozzles, petal nozzle, and lobed nozzle are employed to drive the ejector system at the conditions of different operating pressure ratios. Static pressures on the ejector-diffuser walls are to analyze the complicated flows occurring inside the system. The volume of the secondary chamber is changed to investigate the effect on the steady operation. the results obtained show that the volume of the secondary chamber does not affect the steady operation of the ejector-diffuser system but the time-dependent pressure in the secondary chamber is a strong function of the volume of the secondary chamber.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2000.04b
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• pp.520-524
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• 2000

A ejector system is one of the fluid machinery, which has been mainly used as an exhaust pump or a vacuum pump. The ejector system has often been pointed out to have only a limited efficiency because it is driven by pure shear action and the mixing action between primary and secondary streams. In the present work, numerical simulations were conducted to investigate the effects of the geometry and the mass flow ratio of supersonic ejector-diffuser systems on their mixing performance. A fully implicit finite volume scheme was applied to solve the axisymmetric Navier-Stokes equations, and the standard ${\kappa}-{\varepsilon}$ turbulence model was used to close the governing equations. The flow fields of the supersonic ejector-diffuser systems were investigated by changing the ejector throat area ratio and the mass flow ratio. The existence of the second throat strongly affected the shock wave structure inside the mixing tube as well as the spreading of the under-expanded jet discharging from the primary nozzle, and served to enhance the mixing performance.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2001.06e
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• pp.329-334
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• 2001

In order to investigate the operating characteristics of a supersonic steam ejector, the axisymmetric, compressible, Reynolds-averaged, Navier-Stokes computations are performed using a finite volume method. The secondary and back pressures of the ejector system with a second throat are changed to investigate their effects on the suction mass flow. Three operation modes of the steam ejector system, the critical mode, subcritical mode and back flow mode, are discussed to predict the critical suction mass flow. The present computations are validated with some experimental results. The secondary and back pressures of the supersonic steam ejector significantly affect the critical suction mass flow. The present computations predict the experimented critical mass flow with fairly good accuracy. A good correlation is obtained for the critical suction mass flow. The present results show that provided the primary nozzle configuration and secondary pressure are known, we can predict the critical mass flow with good accuracy.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2011.11a
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• pp.182-186
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• 2011

Ejector-diffuser system has long been used in many diverse fields of engineering applications and it has advantages over other fluid machinery, because of no moving parts and structural simplicity. This system makes use of high-pressure primary stream to entrain the low-pressure secondary stream through pure shear actions between two streams. In general, the flow field in the ejector-diffuser system is highly complicated due to turbulent mixing, compressibility effects and sometimes flow unsteadiness. A fatal drawback of the ejector system is in its low efficiency. Many works have been done to improve the performance of the ejector system, but not yet satisfactory, compared with that of other fluid machinery. In the present study, a mixing guide vane was installed at the inlet of the secondary stream for the purpose of the performance improvement of the ejector system. A CFD method has been applied to simulate the supersonic flows inside the ejector-diffuser system. The present results obtained were validated with existing experimental data. The mixing guide vane effects are discussed in terms of the entrainment ratio, total pressure loss as well as pressure recovery.

• Journal of Advanced Marine Engineering and Technology
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• v.39 no.5
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• pp.548-553
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• 2015

The conventional ejector-diffuser system makes use of high pressure primary stream to propel the secondary stream through pure shear action for the purposes of transport or compression of fluid. It has been widely used in many industrial applications such as seawater desalination, solar refrigeration, marine engineering, etc. The present study is performed numerically to study the performance of a two-stage ejector-diffuser system. The detailed flow phenomenon of the ejector-diffuser system has been critically predicted by means of the numerical approach using compressible Reynolds averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. The axi-symmetric supersonic ejector-diffuser flow has been solved by a fully implicit finite volume scheme with a two-equation k-omega turbulence model. The numerical results are validated with existing experimental data. Detailed flow physics and their contributions on ejector performance are detected to compare both single-stage and two-stage ejectors. The performance improvement on the ejector-diffuser system is discussed in terms of the mass flux ratio and the coefficient of power.

• Proceedings of the KSME Conference
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• 2003.04a
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• pp.2145-2150
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• 2003

Ejector system is one of fluid machinery which can entrain the fluid in low pressure part and transport it to the higher pressure part. The ejector system has been widely used for the purpose of obtaining high-vacuum state, fluid transport, thrust augmentation, etc. It can transport a large capacity of fluid with relatively small device of no any moving parts, and thus seldom causes mechanical troubles. However, the conventional ejector system has been pointed out that its overall efficiency is quite low compared with other fluid machinery since it is derived by only the pure shear stresses. In the present study, 4, 6, and 8 lobed petal nozzles with a design Mach number of 1.7 are adopted as a primary nozzle to improve the ejector performance, and are compared with a conventional circular nozzle. The static pressures along the diffuser wall are measured to qualify the flow field inside the supersonic petal ejector system.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers Conference
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• 2010.05a
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• pp.321-325
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• 2010

Supersonic ejectors are simple mechanical components, which generally perform mixing and/or recompression of two fluid streams. Ejectors have found many applications in engineering. In aerospace engineering, they are used for altitude testing of a propulsion system by reducing the pressure of a test chamber. It is composed of three major sections: a vacuum test chamber, a propulsive nozzle, and a supersonic exhaust diffuser. This paper aims at the improvement of ejector-diffuser performance by focusing attention on reducing exhaust back flow into the test chamber, since alteration of the backflow or recirculation pattern appears as one of the potential means of significantly improving low supersonic ejector-diffuser performance. The simplest backflow-reduction device was an orifice plate at the duct inlet, which would pass the jet and entrained fluid but impede the movement of fluid upstream along the wall. Results clearly showed that the performance of ejector-diffuser system was improved for certain a range of system pressure ratios, whereas the orifice plate was detrimental to the ejector performance for higher pressure ratios. It is also found that there is no change in the performance of diffuser with orifice at its inlet, in terms of its pressure recovery. Hence an appropriately sized orifice system should produce considerable improvement in the ejector-diffuser performance in the intended range of pressure ratios.