Structure influence on the operating limit range and mixing performance of non-axisymmetric jet pump

Although cavitation chocked jet pumps guarantee a steady and accurate liquid mixture, the existing pumps have the shortcomings of big energy loss and small cavitation working range. In the current study, aiming at enhancing the performance of the cavitation mixing devices, an innovative non-axisymmetric jet pump design is proposed. The cavitation characteristics and the mixing performance of the new design have been investigated by both computational simulation and experimental testing. Based on the results of computational fluid dynamics (CFD), it is found that the cavitation on the suction tube side is strengthened due to the turbulence caused by the abrupt change in the local flow channel structure, while the cavitation on the opposite side is weakened due to the gradual flow channel structure. Our experimental testing results prove that our new design can provide a steady mixing ratio as long as the non-axisymmetric vapor cloud steadily covers the suction tube outlet. Furthermore, geometric parameters (convergent angle, divergent angle, throat length and area ratio) of the device have been optimized through the orthogonal analysis. The critical pressure ratio of the optimized device ranges from 0.76 to 0.63 when the critical flow ratio is in the range of 0–10%, which indicates that the optimized device has much less energy loss and a wider working range than the current axisymmetric cavitating jet pumps. Through quantitative energy loss analysis, we have found that the cavitation maintenance corresponds to the greatest energy loss in the jet pumps, yet our non-axisymmetric structure design could effectively reduces energy loss. The current research reveals the physical mechanism on how a non-axisymmetric structure affects the cavitation characteristics as well as the performance of jet pumps.