Turbulence modeling of a single-phase R134a supersonic ejector. Part 1: Numerical benchmark

• A supersonic single-phase ejector working with R134a is investigated numerically.
• A numerical benchmark of thermodynamic and turbulence models is performed.
• A real gas equation is necessary to predict accurately the entrainment ratio.
• Oblique shock waves are well captured by the k−ω SST model.

The present work reports a numerical analysis of a supersonic ejector in single-phase conditions using R134a as the working fluid. A numerical benchmark of some thermodynamic and two-equation turbulence models has been carried out to highlight the numerical model offering the best compromise between accuracy and calculation cost. The validation is achieved by comparing the predicted entrainment ratio with the experimental data of Garcia del Valle et al. (2014). The k−ω SST model together with the REFPROP 7.0 database equation appears to be the best combination to predict accurately the ejector performance and capture the shock wave structure. The influence of the outlet temperature, the discussion about the validity of some assumptions made by one-dimensional (1D) models and the exergy analysis within the ejector for the present operating conditions will later be discussed in Part 2 (Croquer et al., 2015).