An Experimental Investigation of Performance and Exergy Analysis of a Counterflow Vortex Tube Having Various Nozzle Numbers at Different Inlet Pressures of Air, Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Argon

An experimental investigation has been carried out to determine the thermal behavior of cooling fluid as it passes through a vortex tube and the effects of the orifice nozzle number and the inlet pressure on the heating and cooling performance of the counterfiow type vortex tube (RHVT). Experiments have been performed using oxygen (O-2), nitrogen (N-2), and argon (Ar). Five orifices have been fabricated and used during the experimental study with different nozzle numbers of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. The orifices used at these experiments are made of the polyamide plastic material. The thermal conductivity of polyamide plastic material is 0.25 W/m K. To determine the energy separation, the inlet pressure values were adjusted from 150 kPa to 700 kPa with 50 kPa increments for each one of the orifices and each one of the studied fluids. The vortex tube that was used during the experiments has L/D ratio of 15 and the cold mass fraction was held constant at 0.5. As a result of the experimental study, it is determined that the temperature gradient between the cold and hot exits is decreased depending on the orifice nozzle number increase. Exergy analyses have been realized for each one of the studied fluids under the same inlet pressures with the experiments (P-i = 150-700). The exergy efficiency of the vortex tube is more affected by inlet pressure than nozzle number. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4002284]