CFD study on the effect of particle properties on the performance of annular jet pump

Abstract

Abstract The annular jet pump is a type of fluid mechanical pump that operates by exchanging momentum with the fluid. Annular jet pumps possess distinctive advantages in the transportation of solid particles. However, the efficiency of these pumps is significantly impacted by both the physical properties of the particles and their initial concentration, thereby limiting their practical applications. In this paper, by combining other scholars’ designs of annular jet pumps, the effects of different physical densities and different initial concentrations of particles on the flow field, pressure and efficiency of an annular jet pump were analysed based on the RNG k-ε turbulence model and the Mixture multiphase flow model. The efficiency of the annular jet pump decreases with a higher particle bulk density. Specifically, at an initial concentration of 20% and a flow ratio (M) of 0.5, the efficiency of the annular jet pump fluctuates as follows: it changes from 28.736% under single-phase flow conditions to 25.011%, 24.369%, 23.637%, 22.950%, and 21.733% as the density of particulate matter increases. The findings of this study offer valuable theoretical insights for the implementation of annular jet pumps in engineering discharge applications.