Numerical Analysis of a Vortex Tube: A Review

Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube is a simple devise with no moving parts which could generate cold and hot air/gas streams simultaneously with compressed air/gas as a working fluid. The energy and flow separation in a vortex tube is highly depends on factors like nozzle shape, nozzle number, diameter and length of the vortex tube, inlet pressure, control valve, diaphragm hole size and cold mass fraction. As the energy separation and flow patterns in a vortex tube are highly complex and were not explained successfully by any researcher, a computational study of vortex tube flow and energy separation will give a better understanding about the physics and mechanism involved. Many researchers conducted computational fluid dynamic analysis of the vortex to have a deep insight about the process of flow separation. In this paper computational analysis of vortex by many researchers were presented along with the results obtained and suggestions to improve the performance of the vortex tube. Researchers considered Turbulence models which predict the performance precisely were discussed in the present paper. Researchers considered turbulence models like LES, k-epsilon, k-omega and RMS to predict the energy separation in vortex tube. Some researchers considered artificial neural networks (ANN) and Taguchi methods for their analysis. Comparison of the predictions with simulation results were also presented to give a clear idea for the reader about the CFD models prediction capabilities.