Experimental investigation of energy separation in a counter-flow Ranque–Hilsch vortex tube with multiple inlet snail entries

The energy/temperature separation phenomenon and cooling efficiency characteristics in a counter-flow Ranque–Hilsch vortex tube (RHVT) are experimentally studied. The ascertainment focuses on the effects of the multiple inlet snail entries (N = 1 to 4 nozzles), cold orifice diameter ratios (d/D = 0.3 to 0.7) and inlet pressures (Pi = 2.0 and 3.0 bar). The experiments using the conventional tangential nozzles (N = 4), are also performed for comparison. The experimental results reveal that the RHVT with the snail entry provides greater cold air temperature reduction and cooling efficiency than those offered by the RHVT with the conventional tangential inlet nozzle under the same cold mass fraction and supply inlet pressure. The increase in the nozzle number and the supply pressure leads to the rise of the swirl/vortex intensity and thus the energy separation in the tube.