Experimental Evaluation of the Energy Performance of an Air Vortex Tube when the Inlet Parameters are Varied

Abstract

he paper presents the analysis of the energy performance of an air vortex cooling tube under variations of the air inlet properties, with t hree independent experimental tests validated through the energy balance in the device. The experimental analysis includes the following variations of the input conditions: First, the effect of the air inlet pressure to the vortex tube, focused on the analysis of temperature variations in the output cold stream and in the cooling capacity when the cold flow fraction varies. Second, we studied air inlet temperature variations to the vortex tub e under different cold flow fractions, which is an analysis not found in the literature. And finally, is studied the performance of the vortex tube when the insulation is provided or in absence of insulation.