Effect of Cold Plate Aperture and Inlet Pressure on Vortex-Tube Performance: An Experimental study

The influence of the variables of interest,including the cold-plate aperture diameter,cold-mass flow fraction and inlet CO₂-pressure,on the performance of lab-designed vortex-tube,a cooling/heating device,was investigated with the lab-built test platform.The results show that the variables of interest all had a major impact.To be specific,as the pressure increased from 0.2 to 0.6 MPa,the refrigeration changed in an increase-decrease mode,peaking at 0.4 MPa; as the diameter increased from 1.5 to 3.5 mm,the refrigeration varied also in an increase-decrease manner,maximizing at 2.5 mm,because the diameter and pressure strongly affected the cold-mass flow fraction.The optimal diameter and pressure were estimated to be 2.5 mm and 0.4 MPa,respectively; and the largest temperature reduction(increase) was 29.3℃(37.9℃).We suggest that the results herein reported be of some technological interest in design of vortex tube.