Investigation on the changes in the temperature that is caused in vortex tube

Vortex tube, also called Ranque and Hilsch tube (RHVT) who started creating and developing this device with a simple structure and wide application. It can separate a compressed stream into hot and cold streams. Vortex tube was discovered by Ranque. He got a French patent for the device in 1932, United States patent in 1934. The phenomenon of the temperature or energy separation in a RHVT was unexpectedly discovered by Ranque when he experimentally studied on the cyclone duct separator. Then, Hilsch improved the performance of the RHVT by adjusting the tubes geometry and inlet pressure conditions. After World War II, tubes and research that belong to Hilsch had been reveled and studied widely. Westley made more than 100 researches and references about the Vortex Tube. At the same time, there are a lot of articles that have been written by many researchers; for example: Nash, Dobratz, Kalvinskas, McGree, and Curley. By these articles that they made, they tried to improve the vortex tube and push it to be used in several applications. This study presents the effect of cold mass friction, the rates of air flow, the inlet pressure, and time on hot and cold air temperatures that are generated in four different vortex tubes that are manufactured by simple equipments within low prices and different dimensions. That proves the simplification of the vortex tube. Although the efficiency of vortex tube is low, but it produces low temperatures without using expensive cooling machines.