Dynamic characteristics of an unsteady flow through a vortex tube

Dynamic flow characteristics of a counter-flow vortex tube is investigated using hot-wire and piezoelectric transducer (PZT) measurements. The experimental study is conducted over a range of cold air outlet ratios (Y=0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0) and inlet pressure 0.15 MPa. Temperatures are measured at the cold air outlet and along the vortex tube wall. Hot-wire is located at cold outlet and PZT is installed at inner vortex tube by mounting at throttle valve. The cold outlet temperature results show that the swirl flow of vortex tube is not axisymmetric. The hot-wire and PZT results show that there exist two distinct kinds of frequency, low frequency periodic fluctuations and high frequency periodic fluctuations. It is found that the low frequency fluctuation is consistent with the Helmholtz frequency and the high frequency fluctuation is strongly related with precession oscillation.