Numerical study of a double inlet chamber counter flow vortex tube with insulation

Abstract

The present study intends to improve the performance of the Ranque-Hilsch counter flow vortex tube, analysed using computational fluid dynamics. In the axisymmetric 3-D, steady-state, compressible, and turbulent flow vortex tube, the air has been used as the working fluid. The ANSYS17.1 FLUENT software has been used with the standard º-ε turbulent model for different mass fraction of cold fluid and inlet pressure in the numerical simulation and validated with the experimental results. It is observed from the study that as the inlet chambers number increases from 1 to 2, there is a decrease of 7.8 % in the cold exit temperature of the vortex tube. However, insulating the double chamber vortex tube leads to a further reduction of 4.2% in the cold exit temperature. Therefore, it indicates that the overall decline in the cold exit temperature from one chamber non-insulated vortex tube to double chamber insulated vortex tube is 9.6%. In terms of cold exit temperature, it can be concluded that using a double inlet chamber vortex tube with insulation yields the optimum results.