Modeling and simulation of steam-jet vacuum pump

The flow characteristics of the steam-jet vacuum pump were approximated, modeled by transonic flow, simulated with the fLUID dynamics (CFD) code of the software package Fluent 12.0, and measured, to fully understand the flow behavior of the primary and secondary fluids. The simulated and measured results of the static, axial pressure distribution along the mixing chamber wall were found to be in fairly good agreement, proving the validity of the newly-developed model. The simulated results show that a spontaneous condensation occurs as the steam passes the nozzle. Interesting finding was that the simulated data with an ideal gas are very close to our calculated results with the steam. In addition, the simulated results were found to agree well with those recently reported in the references.