International Journal of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering IJMME-IJENS Vol:14 No:03

45

Performance Evaluation of Water Jet Pump for

Nozzle to Throat Area Ratios on Suction Lift
Md. Mizanur Rahman1, Md. Assad-Uz-zaman2 and Mohammad Mashud3

Abstract The experiment was about to study of water jet

pumps with different diameters and nozzle-to-throat area ratios.
Most experimental studies on water jet pumps mainly carried out
to assess the maximum efficiency. But maximum efficiency
occurs when the suction lift is relatively small for a given head
loss through the pump, which implies, when the suction flow rate
is maximum. However, suction lift is inversely proportional to
flow rate. But in the field of application there are many cases
(such as drainage, dredging, well-pumping and other systems)
where suction lift is more important factor than any other for
water jet pumps, which gives importance to the assessment of
depending factor of suction lift of water jet pumps. Six different
jet pumps of two different nominal diameter each of three
different nozzle to throat area ratio were made to carry out this
experiment. The results revealed that the nozzle-to-throat area
ratio was an important parameter to characterize the suction lift
of the jet pumps, but nominal diameter had a negligible play role.
Index Term
Throat area.

Jet Pump, Nominal Dia, Suction lift and

I. INTRODUCTION
Ajet-pump is a device that uses the venturi effect of a
converging-diverging nozzle to convert the pressure energy of
a motive fluid into velocity energy which creates a low
pressure zone that draws in and entrains a suction fluid. These
accessories are used to suck and elevate liquids, gases or
granular solids. The efficiency of jet pumps is usually lower
than that of conventional pumps but these accessories have
some advantages over conventional pumps such as reliable
operation, no moving parts, low maintenance cost, long
equipment life, low noise level, and feasibility to operate
under several ranges of pressure and flow rate.
Jet pumps exhibit the beneficial characteristic of being able
to convert a high energy, low volume flow into a low energy,
high volume flow. They are also able to pump fluids
containing high levels of abrasive material which would
quickly destroy the moving parts of a conventional pump.
When used to pump well water, jet pumps also have the
1

Senior Lecturer, Mechanical Engineering Program, School of Engineering

and Information Technology, University Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu,
88400 Sabah, Malaysia, Phone: +60146594093, Email: mizanur@ums.edu.my
2

Lecturer, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Khulna University of

Engineering and Technology (KUET)., Khulna-9203, Bangladesh
Phone 88041769471 Ext. 439, Email: assad_kuet08@yahoo.com

Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Khulna University of

Engineering and Technology (KUET)., Khulna-9203, Bangladesh
Phone 88041769471 Ext. 405, Email: mdmashud@yahoo.com

advantage of locating all the moving parts of the pump on the

surface with only the venturi section underground.
Most experimental study was conducted in this field to get
the maximum efficiency but very few were done on suction
lift. In many cases suction lift is more important than
maximum efficiency. To do so, an afford was made to get the
effect of nominal diameter and nozzle to throat area ratio on
suction lift of water jet pumps.
II. WORKING PRINCIPLE
A centrifugal pump delivered water from a feed tank to
the jet pump. The pressure head of water converts into kinetic
energy & there is a considerable drop of pressure at the end of
nozzle. Due to this pressure drop suction is created which
causes the entrainment of another fluid and accomplishes the
pumping of another fluid. The suction fluid in general differs
from the driving fluid.
Now to explain the working principle of jet pump we have
to focus on the components of jet pump. Basically jet-pumps
are composed of ve components. The driving nozzle, suction
nozzle, suction chamber, mixing chamber or throat and

Fig. 1. Components of a jet-pump

diffuser, as schematically shown in Fig. 1. The motive fluid

comes out through the driving nozzle converting pressure
energy into velocity, which creates a low pressure zone in the
suction chamber. Due to these low pressure suction fluid
entrances at the suction chamber, then mixes with driving
fluid at the mixing chamber. After passing through the mixing
chamber, the mixed fluid expands and the velocity is reduced.
This results in recompressing the mixed fluids by converting
velocity energy back into pressure energy. The motive fluid
may be a liquid, steam or any other gases, the entrained
suction fluid may be a gas, a liquid, a slurry or granular solids.

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International Journal of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering IJMME-IJENS Vol:14 No:03

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III. DESIGN PROCEDURE

To evaluate the effect of diameter to characterize the
suction lift of the jet pumps, it is needed at least two different
nominal diameter jet pumps of same nozzle to throat area
ratios. On the other hand to evaluate the effect of nozzle-tothroat area ratio to characterize the suction lift of the jet
pumps, it is needed jet pumps of several nozzle to throat area
ratios of same nominal diameter. Based on these
considerations following dimensional jet pumps were made.
The construction of jet pump was fully carried out by lathe
machine. Nylon was the material of construction. Following
are the dimensions of jet pump constructed.

V. RESULT & DISCUSSION

For different inlet pressure, value of discharge for different
jet pumps (of different nominal diameter & nozzle-to-throat
area ratio) were enlisted, which graphical representation is
given below.

For different inlet pressure, value of suction pressure for

different jet pumps (of different nominal diameter & nozzleto-throat area ratio) were enlisted, which graphical
representation is given below.

IV. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP

A centrifugal pump acted as a feed pump. This pump drew
water from a reservoir. The pump delivered fluid at a rate of
2.0 litre/sec and at a manometric head of 29m(H2O). A jet
pump connected with the pipeline where pressure drop
occurred which resulted the suction of fluid. A pressure gauge
used at inlet of the jet pump to get the pressure head of driving
fluid. A vacuum gauge used at suction entrance to measure the
suction pressure created by jet pump.

Figure 4 is the representation of Inlet Pressure Vs Discharge

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International Journal of Mechanical & Mechatronics Engineering IJMME-IJENS Vol:14 No:03

of all six jet pumps of nominal diameter 25mm & 32mm in a
single graph. This graph of Figure 4 shows that with the
increase of nominal diameter discharge of a jet pump increases
significantly.
Figure 5, which represents the graph of Inlet Pressure Vs
Suction Pressure of all six jet pumps of nominal diameter
25mm & 32mm in a single graph, it can easily been seen that
Jet Pump of same nozzle to throat area ratio but of different
nominal diameter gives almost same Suction Pressure at
different Inlet Pressure. But with the increase of nozzle to
throat area ratio there is a significant increase in Suction
Pressure for same nominal diameter jet pump at different Inlet
Pressure. It indicates that nozzle to throat area ratio has the
important aspect on characterization of Jet Pumps than the
nominal diameter.

47

(2) (2010) 575-582.J. H. Davis and J. R. Cogdell, Calibration program

for the 16-foot antenna, Elect. Eng. Res. Lab., Univ. Texas, Austin,
Tech. Memo. NGL-006-69-3, Nov. 15, 1987.

VI. CONCLUSION
An experimental study was performed on water jet pumps
with different nominal diameters and nozzle-to-throat area
ratios. The results showed that the Suction Pressure is directly
dependent on the Inlet Pressure or motive pressure head for all
jet pumps. It is interesting to observe that similar behaviors
were obtained with the jet pumps with the same nozzle-tothroat area ratios but with different nominal diameters (D). So,
the nozzle-to-throat area ratio was found to be an important
geometrical parameter to characterize the suction lift of the jet
pumps, while their nominal diameter had a negligible impact.

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