Computational fluid dynamic analysis and design optimization of jet pumps

Jet pumps have a wide variety of applications and are commonly used in thermal power plants and refrigeration systems. An initial jet-pump design was developed using an analytical approach and its efficiency was improved using an efficient and accurate computational fluid dynamics model of the compressible turbulent flow in the pump, whose predictions agreed well with corresponding experimental data. Parametric studies were performed to determine the influence of the pump's geometry on its performance and the high fidelity CFD solutions were used to build surrogate models of the pump's behavior using the moving least squares method. Global optimization was carried out using the surrogates. This approach resulted in pump efficiency increasing from 29% to 33% and enabled the energy requirements of the pump to be reduced by over 20%. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.