Experimental investigation on heating performance of a counter-flow vortex tube

ABSTRACT

Previous researches mainly focused on the cooling performance of the vortex tube. Here, the heating performance indicators such as hot temperature difference, heating rate per unit air, and coefficient of performance are investigated experimentally. The results show that the maximum heating separation is obtained when the cold mass fraction is in the range of 0.45–0.7. The influence of inlet pressure on the hot temperature difference tends to reduce when it exceeds 0.3 MPa. Increase of the inlet pressure will cause the decrease of heating rate. Compared with 4-nozzle vortex tube, much better performance is achieved when 6-nozzle vortex tube is used.

KEYWORDS:

• Vortex tube
• temperature separation
• heat transfer

Nomenclature

Cp	=	specific heat, J/(kg.K)
D	=	diameter of the vortex tube, mm
K	=	Kelvin
L	=	Length of the vortex tube, mm
M	=	mass flow rate of fluid, kg/s
P	=	pressure, Pa
Qc	=	cooling power separation, W
W	=	rate of work input

Greek symbols

μc	=	cold mass fraction
γ	=	specific heat ratio

subscript

c	=	cold gas
h	=	hot gas
i	=	inlet gas

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [51574272]; Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [17CX05007]; Laboratory of Marine Spill Oil Identification and Damage Assessment Technology [201813].