What is Ejector? An ejector is a device used to suck the gas or vapour from the desired vessel or system. An ejector is similar to an of vacuum pump or compressor. The major difference between ‘the ejector and the vacuum pump or compressor is it had na moving parts, Hence it is relatively low-cost and easy to operate and maintenance free equipment. Sea, B Suction Chamber Convergent Divergent Section Section ae Suction Principle of Ejector ‘The operating principle of the ejector is the pressure energy in the motive fluid is converted to velocity energy by an adiabatic expansion in the Converging/Diverging Nozzte. Due to the pressure drop of the motive fluid, it will create a low-pressure zone before the mixing chamber. Due to the low-pressure zone, the suction fluid will start to move to toward it and mix with motive fluid in the mixing chamber. In mixed fluid enter the diverging portion of the ejector where its velocity energy is canverted into Pressure energy. Working of Ejector Mast ejectors have a fixed capacity curve as shown in Figure 1. In this type of ejector the ‘capacity is a function of the absolute pressure at the suction inlet. Increasing the steam pressure above the design pressure will not increase the capacity of the ejector: as a matter of fact, it will actually decrease the capacity because of the choking effect of the ‘excess steam in the diffuser throat,In contrast ta the fixed capacity curve of Figure 1, some ejectors have a family of capacity curves, a8 shown in Figure 2, where the capacity is also a function of the steam pressure. ‘These designs are referred to as throtlling type ejectors because the capacity can be decreased by decreasing the steam pressure. In these designs, the ratio of discharge pressure lo suction pressure is relatively low as compared to fixed capacity designs. Ejectors are most sensitive to changes in discharge pressure. If the discharge pressure ‘on an ejector exceeds its maximum stable discharge pressure, the operation will become unstable and the capacity will no longer be a function of the absolute pressure. Stabile ‘operation can be attained either by increasing the steam flow or by decreasing the discharge pressure. For stable operation, the steam pressure far most ejectors must be above a certain level. This lower boundary will have two magnitudes depending upon whether the steam pressure is approaching the transition paint from the unsiable side or from the stable side, Motive Fluid Looe oNerging et Out Nox Ditfuser ‘i soi : Diftuser Throat + inlet Gas, Uquic, ‘rather ™ res vo STEAM CHEST, This is the connection through which the high pressure motive steam ‘supply is introduced. SUCTION CHAMBER. This provides a plenum chamber with the appropriate connections for the suction inlet, diffuser and steam nozzle. This part can somatimes be eliminated by incorporating the diffuser connection and steam nozzle connection in the vessel which is to be evacuated. Frequently more compact designs and savings in cost can result from such designs.‘STEAM NOZZLE. This is the heart of an ejector since it converts the energy of pressure to velocity and directs the flow of motive steam into the diffuser. INLET DIFFUSER. This provides a correctly shaped introductory section and converging diffuser section to handle the high velocity flow of fluids. It is in this section that entrainment and mixing of the motive and toad fluids is completed and the energy of supersonic velocity is converted to pressure, THROAT SECTION. This is the transition piece between the converging supersonic inlet diffuser and the diverging subsonic outlet diffuser. OUTLET DIFFUSER. This provides a correctly shaped diverging diffuser section for ‘completing the conversion of velocity to pressure. After the fluid flow has passed through the thraat of the diffuser, the flow is essentially subsonic. The outlet diffuser section further reduces the fluid velocity to a reasonable level so as to convert practically all the velocity ‘energy to pressure energy. Suction Pressure ~ In Hg abs eo 3 1 (Non! Steam Pressure Requires |. For stepiity at No Looe ° 2 30. Perenat OF Berrien Cavasity * ue = FIGURE !—For a fixed-capacity ejector, increasing the steam pressure will not increase the capacity. Ifthe steam pressure is being increased from a region of unstabile operation, the point at which the ejector first becomes stable is called the motive steam pickup pressure, The pickup pressure is a direct function of the discharge pressure. At the higher discharge pressure, the ejector will regain its stability once the motive steam pressure is increased to the pickup pressure; but the absolute pressure for a particular load may be increased ‘slightly from what it was at the lower discharge pressure.For every discharge pressure in an ejector there is also a minimum steam flow below which the operation will be unstable. If the steam pressure is being decreased from a region of stabile operation, the point at which the ejector becomes unstable is called its motive steam break pressure. The motive ‘steam break pressure is below the motive steam pickup pressure for any given discharge pressure and load, For this reason, the ejector operating with steam pressure between ‘the break and pickup points may be stable or unstable depending an the direction of the ‘steam pressure change. ‘The terms “break” and “pickup” pressures are also used in reference to the discharge pressure of an ejector for the pressures at which ejector operation becomes unstable and stable, respectively. These critical discharge pressures are a function of the steam pressure and load. Some ejector stages have no motive steam break and pickup pressures because of the low ratio of discharge pressure to suction pressure over which they operate, or because they are designed to eliminate this characteristic. In these ejectors the capacity varies. directly with steam pressure over certain operating limits. a LL 20} {i i 8 : ° 20 Too Percent Of Oasign Capecity FIGURE 2—The capacity of a throttling ejector is a fune- tion of both the suction pressure and the motive ste pressure. Basic design here is 100 psigSingle-Point Design. If only one load and vacuum are required for a particular application, ‘single and multistage ejectors can be designed specifically for one condition. This saves. steam Occasionally, however, single-point design ejectors are not always. stable at very light loads of at loads slightly in excess of design. An ejector of this design is not necessarily undesirable if the ejector always operates at the exact design conditions. This, of course, depends on whether or not it's possible to determine accurately the load on the ejector before hand. ‘Close designs can often result in substantial steam and waler savings in large systems. However, itis usually not passible to determine exact operating conditions prior to design. For this reason single-point designs are not in general use Multipoint Design. Occasionally an ejector must operate alternately at two or more conditions of load and vacuum. in this instance the ejector must be designed for the most difficult conditions (or the conditions that call for the largest ejector). The other conditions. ‘will then fall within the performance curve of the larger ejector An ejector of this type {s sometimes considerably oversized for some of the required conditions in order to achieve the most economical design from the standpoint of initial cost. if operational economy is important at each of the conditions, it may be desirable to use two separate ejectors to achieve efficiency at both operating points. Itis possible in some applications to provide an ejector for two or more different operating conditions—with maximum efficiency at each point—by providing @ steam nozzle or diffuser designed far each condition, In changing operations from one condition to the ‘other, it is necessary to shut down the system long enough to change the nozzle or the diffuser. Often, substantial steam savings (90 0¢——aimcaphers Prewtule 5 " z er : Fi 3 2° * a + oer 6 Te00‘can be realized in this way, thus avoiding the cost of two ejector systems. Designs of this kind have found applications in the recompression bossters far evaporators and large ‘sjectors for high-altitude wind tunnels, In certain applications an ejector is required to meet a specific design curve. Then sometimes considerably more steams used than for a single-point design to produce the: desired characteristic curve. At some point in the curve the ejector is, of course, relatively efficient and at either side of this high-efficiency point the ejector is relatively inefficient Stages Give Versatility. It is possible to meet a large variely of operating conditions ‘economically with multistage ejectors by aperating only some of the stages at a time. All sjectors haverat least as many different performance curves as thay have stages. Far @ particular stage to operate, all the succeeding stages must, of course, be operating, Practically all paints: within the envelope formed by these curves can be reached by the ‘@jector, Thus, the ejector can cover an entire area of possible operating conditions. Six and seven stages of compression have lengthened the range of operation of steam ¢jectors down to absolute pressures as low as 1 micron of Hg (0.001 mm. Hg. Commercial designs are available and should often be used in place of other kinds of vacuum pumps: How TO GET VACUUM In the field of vacuum processing, steam jet ejectors have been most widely used. Steam jet ejectors are ideal for use on all kinds of stills, vacuum deaerators, evaporators, crystallizers, oll deodorizers, steam vacuum refrigeration, flash coolers, condensers, ‘vacuum pan dryers, dehydrators, vacuum impregnators, freeze dryers, vacuum filters and more recently on stream degassing of metals and vacuum melting of metals. Steam jet ‘ejectors offer operational and economical advantages over a very large range of pumping capacities, Corrosive applications are easily handled providing a suitable material is available that can withstand the corrosive medium in question with reasonable structural ‘strength at the temperatures to be encountered by the ejector system. Figure 3 is.a comparison of capacity and operating range for mast of the common designs ‘of steam jet ejectors handling any non-condensable gas such as air. This graph is based ‘on each of the designs using the same amount of motive steam at 100 psi pressure, Each point on the curve represents a point of maximum efficiency, therefore, it should be borne ‘in mind that an ejector cannot necessarily operate over the entire range of suction pressures indicated for a particular design. A reasonable range of operation for good ‘efficiency would be fram 50 percent to 115 percent of the design capacity. An ejector may ‘operate well in excess of these figures; hawaver, the efficiency will usually decrease at points beyond these limits. Water temperature affects the load which may be handled by an ejector, If condensing water colder than 85 F. Were used for our comparison in Figure 3, all of the curvesrepresenting the performance of ejectors that require water would be shifted to the right, indicating an increase in capacity for these designs. If water warmer than 85 F. were used, the shift in these curves would be to the left, And if the water temperature were high enough, some of the curves would move far enough to the left to disappear from the graph entirely ‘The effect of water temperature is more critical on ejectors designed for low absolute pressures. For example; in 4-stage ejector, the increase in capacity for 65 F. water over 85 F. water for a particular steam consumption will be greater at 1 mm. Hg. Abs. than at 4mm, Steam pressures higher than 100 psig will permit designing for a larger capacity for a particular steam consumption. A greater benefit from high steam pressures can be realized in 1- and 2-stage ejectors than in other designs. ‘The benefit from high-steam pressures becomes less as the absolute pressure for which the ejector is designed decreases. Single-stage ejectors designed for absolute pressures. lower than 200 mm. Hg Abs. cannot operate efficiently on steam pressures below 25 psig. However, initial stages of multistage ejectors can often be designed to operate efficiently ‘on steam pressures below 1 psig. It is not uncommen to use an extra stage for an ejector designed to operate on steam pressures as low as 15psig It is very important that the steam used to motivate ejectors be at least dty-saturated steam. Small amounts of moisture can be removed successfully by using a good, properly sized steam separator which will remove 98 to 99 percent of the moisture entering the separator. ‘Water jet ejectors are available that can economically handle a nominal amount of air leakage in vacuum equipment along with a large condensable vapor load. Water pressures as low as 10 to 20 psig will sustain a moderate vacuum while water pressures. ‘of 40 psig and higher will efficiently sustain a vacuum in the range of 4.0 inches to 1.0 inch Hg. Abs, pressure with a single stage ejector depending on the load to the ejector cand the temperature of the motivating water, ‘The water operated ejector combined with a steam jet ejector can yield a very compact, efficient and relatively inexpensive vacuum pumping system. The water jet ejectar serves both as an intercondenser and a final stage to the ejector system. In instances where the non-condensable entering the ejector system are small compared to the condensable ‘vapors, say 10 percent by weight noncandensables or less, the water jet ejector can take ‘the place of a two stage ejector in maintaining a suction pressure of 3 inches to 2 inches Hg, Abs. to which the steam jet ejector can discharge, The result is a low priced and ‘efficient vacuum pumping system. In Europe, an interesting equivalent to the water ejector is a centrifugal water jet ejector which combines a centrifugal pump with the ejectar principle and which recirculates the motive water handling air and vapor loads in a singlepiece of equipment. It is likely, however, that the combination of a separate centrifugal pump and a separate water jet ejector would be a more competitive pumping system than the European centrifugal ejector pump. FOR PUMPING AND MIXING Steam jet ejectors can be designed to pump liquids and even finely divided solids for pneumatic conveying systems. In the latter service, they are becoming widely used to transfer fluidized catalyst with ease and a minimum of loss. Liquid jet ejectors can also pump liquids with good efficiencies as can steam jet ejectars. In any case, the motive liquid pressure must be sufficiently higher than the suction and discharge pressures of the ejectorto yield an ecanomical flow ratio of motive liquid to laad liquid. In addition to liquid pumping, liquid operated ejectors can be used to agitate, mix ‘or meter liquid solutions. ‘Water operated ejectors are popularly used for fume scrubbing. A large volume of gas ‘and vapor can be entrained at drafts from a fraction of an inch of water to about 10 inches ‘of water and higher with good water ecanomy. In these applications, obnoxious, corrosive or poisonous fumes can be sucked out of an enclosed area by means of a simple water jet ejector. In addition to vacuum pumping, ejectors have found many applications for compressing fluids lo pressures above atmospheric, Steam jet thermocompressors are a Very efficient means of boosting low-pressure waste Steam to a pressure where it can serve a useful purpose. High-pressure motive steam which might othenwise be throttled for use in an ‘evaporator or heat exchanger can be used to actuate a steam jet thermocompressor. The thermocompressor can serves two purposes: (1) it throttles the high-pressure steam to the desired pressure and (2) it compresses low-pressure waste steam to a pressure where it is again useful. Steam jat air compressors are useful for supplying compressed air in an explosion hazardous area where electrical equipment would have to be of explosion proof construction and relatively expensive. Compressed air at 20 psig for pneumatic controls is a typical application for steam jet air compressors It is often essential that an ejector be actuated by a gas or vapor other than steam. Excellent examples of this are the gas actuated ejectors used to compress low pressure manufactured gas from atmospheric pressure to the 15 or 20 psig pressure required for distribution mains. High pressure natural gas at about 100 psig or higher is used to actuate the ejector. The ejector serves to (1) compress the manufactured gas, (2) throttle the high pressure natural gas and (3) blend the two gases to the correct proportion.HOW TO SPECIFY ‘When considering ejector equipment for an application, one should inelude all possible ‘information relating to the performance required by the equipment. It is important, therefore, to menticn here the type of information required by the manufacturers of ejector equipment. if the manufacturer nas knowledge of the application, many design ‘considerations will be evident and so it is advantageous and sometimes very important to reveal the application when writing specifications. The sample questionnaires accompanying this article will serve as a check list fo anyone who must write ejector ‘specifications. In many applications there may be additional information required; ‘however, these questionnaires concem the essential data neaded. Capacity of Ejectors ‘The capacity of an ejector is determined by its dimensions. By the required cap: very high then two or three ejactors are working in parallel. If greater compression is required, two or more ejectors will be arranged in series. roa _ silencer F seanjtyeanence Gea » 5 uci fw \ ™ TF deco ji pea fou Sete Seam Fit Seve age Tage te ee igh) My) Linh Dim Links) Chim Linh Dim Te) » * ow Ww om a a on om om a ee eC so Ww ww Bs ww ome Sa) tga 2 1% wo wm komm Sa SREEEEjector Installation Ejectors may be installed at any orientation. However, it is very important to provide a provision to remove the condensate or solid particles from the entrained gases of the ejector. Since any condensed or solid particles may reduce throughput capacity of the ejectors. Hence it very important to pravide a drain valve installed at low points can be either manual or automatic float operated valves, Anather important thing to check during ejector installation is external loads(Piping load) act on the ejectors. Since any misalignment will adversely affect the performance of ‘ejector. motive tearmBenefits of Ejector + Ejectors can be operated with maniy different motive fluids: steam, alr, organic vapour and other gases. + No moving parts, no lubrication, no vibration. Hence low maintenance cost when to compare with other peer equipment. + Ejectors can be installed indoors or outdoors without restriction. + Cane installed at any orientation, Hence, space requirement will be very low. Initial cost is vety less and no spares required. = Easy to handle corrosive: and slugging liquids.