AN INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECT OF THE HOT END PLUGS ON THE EFFICIENCY OF THE RANQUE-HILSCH VORTEX TUBE

The phenomenon of temperature distribution in confined steady rotating gasflows is called Ranque-Hilsch effect. The simple counter-flow vortex tubeconsists of a long hollow cylinder with tangential nozzle at one end for injectingcompressed air. The flow inside the vortex tube can be described as rotating air,which moves in a spring-shaped vortex track. The peripheral flow movestoward the hot end where a hot end plug is placed and the axial flow, which isforced back by the plug, moves in the opposite direction toward the cold end.This paper focuses on the effect of the size of hot nozzle on the performance ofthe Ranque–Hilsch vortex tube. Series of plugs were used in the experiment inorder to find the relationship between the diameter of hot end plug and theperformance of the vortex tube.