Experimental study of vortex tube performance with natural gas as working fluid

In this study, Vortex tube, an energy separating device which is compact and simple investigated to determine for best performance experimentally. A vortex tube is designed and manufactured by steel and then is tested by the use of natural gas as working fluid. On the vortex generator, 6 nozzles inserted. The internal diameter of the vortex tube used in the experiments is 8.7 mm, cold orifice diameter is 6.4 mm and length of tube is 95 mm. For different values of pressure (1.5, 2.8, 4.2, 5.5 and 8.5 bar), temperature of hot and cold streams is measured by the use of thermometers located at the hot and cold outlet sides in the vortex tube to determine the vortex tube performance. The maximum difference in the temperatures of hot and cold streams was obtained in the highest pressure 8.5 bar at around cold mass fraction of 0.4. The experimental results reveal that increase in the supply pressure leads to the rise of the swirl/vortex intensity and thus the energy separation in the tube. Inlet pressure and cold mass fraction play an important role in promoting the energy separation in the vortex tube.

کلیدواژه ها:

Vortex Tube ، Efficiency ، Natural Gas