A novel CFD approach for the computation of R744 flashing nozzles in compressible and metastable conditions

The present paper describes a novel CFD approach for the flashing of CO2 through nozzles and ejectors. The novelty of the method is represented by the possibility of defining both the liquid and vapor phases as compressible materials. The properties of each phase are obtained via look-up tables calibrated against standard fluid libraries and are valid in the whole domain of interest, including the supercritical, subcritical and metastable regions. The model has been implemented within a commercial CFD solver and is completely general, i.e., it can be applied to any type of compressible multiphase flow. In the present study, the proposed approach has been validated against an experimental test-case available in literature.