Flow Phenomenon Analysis Inside Ranque-Hilsch Vortex Tube

Thermal design and management of vortex tube has emerged to be a major issue for cooling operation performance in refrigeration and air conditioning systems due to its low cost, no moving parts, no work input and environmentally friendly. A vortex tube (VT) is a useful fluid dynamics device that is capable to separate simultaneously a flow of gas into two streams, significantly hotter and cooler than the inlet temperature despite of the absence of any moving parts or work input, electrically or chemically. The aim of this book is to perform a numerical prediction of flow and thermal distribution within vortex tube in order to obtain more information and disclose the effect of parameters such as the number of nozzles intakes (N) and the length to diameter ratio (L/D) on the operational characteristics of vortex tube refrigerator with cooled hot-tube. To the best of author's knowledge such numerical investigation for the influence of cooling a hot-tube is presented for first time. The highest and the lowest temperature differences and efficiencies are belonging to the vortex tube with and without a cooled hot-tube at N = 4 and L/D = 47.5, and N = 1 and L/D = 42.5, respectively.