Performances Analysis of Vortex Tube on CFD

Abstract

A vortex tube is a simple energy separating device which splits a compressed air stream into a cold and hot stream without any no
moving parts, external energy supply or chemical reactions. The vortex tube or Ranque–Hilsch vortex tube is a simple device used
in industry for generation of cold and hot air streams from a single compressed air supply. The flow inside the vortex tube can be
described as rotating air, which moves in a spring-shaped vortex track. The peripheral flow moves toward the hot end where a hot
end plug is placed and the axial flow, which is forced back by the plug, moves in the opposite direction toward the cold end. This
paper focuses on the effect of the size of hot nozzle on the performance of the Ranque–Hilsch vortex tube. A series of nozzle were
used in the analysis in order to find the relationship between the different set of nozzle and the performance of the vortex tube.
Vortex produce hot air and cold air from a high pressure air source using. The present research has focused on the energy
separation and flow field behavior of a vortex tube by utilizing both straight and helical nozzles. Basically three kinds of nozzles
set include, 3 and 6 straight types and 3 helical type’s nozzles have been investigated and their principal effect on cold
temperature difference was compared. All vortex tubes dimensions are kept the same for models. The numerical value comes from
hot and cold outlet temperature differences is indicated the considerable operating role of helical nozzles and a few numbers of
that in comparing with straight nozzles. These result showed that this type of nozzles causes to form higher swirl velocity in the
vortex chamber than the straight one. All these performances analysis is done on three dimensional flow domain using
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD).