Numerical Analysis of Flow Behavior in Vortex Tube for Different Gases

Abstract

The vortex tube is an energy separation device that separates compressed gas stream into a low and a high temperature stream. Present work reports the flow behavior inside the vortex tube for different commonly used fluids with varied properties like Air, He, N2, CO2 and NH3. Flow behavior investigation for three-dimensional short straight-diverging vortex tube is done with CFD code (ANSYS 16.0). Different turbulent models, standard k-epsilon, Realizable k-epsilon and RNG k-epsilon are tested. Realizable k-epsilon model was then used for analysis. Flow behavior of gases with varied multi-atomic number is analyzed and compared with literature. The effect on temperature for N2 is found to be better, followed by He, CO2, Air and NH3. Energy separation for N2 is 46 % higher than all other gases. Energy separation and flow behavior inside vortex tube is analyzed and compared with literature.