An applicable surface heating in a two-phase ejector refrigeration

Ejectors have been utilized in many industries such as steam power plants, nuclear reactors, desalination system, refrigeration, etc. However, due to the low coefficient of ejector performance, the ejector refrigeration systems are less used than the other methods (compression or absorption refrigeration systems). On the other hand, nucleated droplets in wet steam ejectors cause erosion/corrosion in the walls. In this research, the effects of surface heating on the ejector performance in the refrigeration system have been investigated. Flow simulation in the ejector is performed using Fluent software in two-phase mode. Then, by analyzing the outlet ejector parameters, the practical heat value is obtained. Criteria for investigating the effect of surface heating are entrainment ratio of the ejector, coefficient of performance of ejector refrigeration cycle, wetness, number of droplets, droplets radius, and entropy. The results show that the surface heating reduces the wetness and entrainment ratio at the end of the primary nozzle. In addition, an applicable value for surface heating has been obtained and a relatively good wetness reduction (0.81%) is achieved.