Investigation of the effects of inlet gas properties on the performance of vortex tube refrigerators

In this work, the effect of a performance parameter on energy separation and refrigeration of vortex tube is investigated numerically. The study was conducted on four different inlet gasses such as: air, helium, nitrogen and oxygen. The three dimensional model is investigated at steady state condition then the RNG K − ԑ turbulence model utilizes for determining the flow and temperature fields. The finite volume method base on Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) model is verified through comparison with experimental data and numerical results used in a straight vortex tube, reported work in the literature. The code was then utilized to study the effects of different inlet gasses on the performance of the straight vortex tube. Numerical results indicate that energy separation can be improved by changing this performance parameter and more details are reported during this simulation with contour plots and solid arguments comprehensively. The actual values and numerical simulation results indicated that CFD model is capable of predicting the cooling and heating performance of Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube with different thermo-physical features.

Keywords:

Energy separation , Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube , Inlet gas , CFD