A parametric study on the performance of a Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube using a CFD-based approach

In this paper, a numerical investigation is carried out to realize the behavior of a fabricated vortex tube. A computational fluid dynamics model is used to simulate the flow field structure in the tube in order to study the effects of various parameters on the performance and temperature separation. Numerical results such as temperature separation versus cold outlet mass fraction are obtained for a specific vortex tube with given inlet thermo physical properties. The numerical results are obtained for various amounts of cold outlet mass fractions. The calculated temperature distributions inside the Ranque-Hilsch Vortex Tube (RHVT) are simultaneously compared with available experimental results and a good agreement between them is noticed. It is found that increasing the inlet nozzle height improves the performance of the RHVT. The results also indicated that small values of cold mass fraction give best result in cold exit temperature difference.