Aerodynamic and thermal characteristics of a maxwell type vortex tube

Abstract

Abstract A three-dimensional (3D) computational fluid dynamic simulation of a vortex tube is carried out to examine its flow and thermal characteristics. The aim of this work is to model the performance of the vortex tube and to capture the highly swirling compressible flow behavior inside the tube for an understanding of the well known temperature separation process. Simulations were carried out using the standard k-ɛ, k-omega, RNG k-ɛ and swirl RNG k-ɛk-ɛ turbulence models. An experimental setup was built and tested to validate the simulation results. The RNG k-ɛ turbulence model yielded better agreement between the numerical predictions and experimental data. This model captured well the essential features of the flow including formation of the outer vortex and the inner reverse vortex flow. Flow and geometric parameters that affect the flow behavior and energy separation are studied numerically. Effects of the inlet pressure, with and without an insert in the tube, are examined by numerical experiments.