Numerical study of a CO₂ swirl ejector with lubricating oil

At present, most simulations of ejectors ignore the presence of lubricating oil, which may affect the accuracy of the results. Additionally, there has been less research conducted on the influence of motive nozzles with swirl generators on the performance of ejectors. In this study, a heterogeneous mixture model was developed for a three-phase swirl ejector equipped with a motive nozzle featuring a swirl generator. This article examines the performance of swirl ejectors under supercritical conditions using three-dimensional numerical simulations conducted in ANSYS. The study explores swirl ejectors with varying helical angles of 77°, 64°, 58°, 50°, 37°. The study also takes into account the influence of lubricating oil to enhance the practicality of the research. Firstly, lubricating oil with a volume fraction of 2 % was introduced into both the motive and suction streams, followed by conducting an ejection analysis. The results indicate that the swirl enhances the entrainment ratio, and the swirl strength can be modified by changing the helical angle. A smaller helical angle results in greater swirl strength and a higher entrainment ratio. When the helical angle is 37° and the helical pitch is 20 mm, a swirl number of 0.42, an entrainment ratio of 0.998, and an effective entrainment ratio of 0.863 is achieved. However, when the oil circulation ratio in the suction stream is increased from 2 % to 10 % while keeping the oil circulation ratio of the motive stream constant, the entrainment ratio decreases.