scholarly journals CFD analysis of helical nozzles effects on the energy separation in a vortex tube

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nader Pourmahmoud ◽  
Hassan Zadeh ◽  
Omid Moutaby ◽  
Abdolreza Bramo

In this article computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis of a three-dimensional steady state compressible and turbulent flow has been carried out through a vortex tube. The numerical models use the k-? turbulence model to simulate an axisymmetric computational domain along with periodic boundary conditions. The present research has focused on the energy separation and flow field behavior of a vortex tube by utilizing both straight and helical nozzles. Three kinds of nozzles set include of 3 and 6 straight and 3 helical nozzles have been investigated and their principal effects as cold temperature difference was compared. The studied vortex tubes dimensions are kept the same for all models. The numerical values of hot and cold outlet temperature differences indicate the considerable operating role of helical nozzles, even a few numbers of that in comparing with straight nozzles. The results showed that this type of nozzles causes to form higher swirl velocity in the vortex chamber than the straight one. To be presented numerical results in this paper are validated by both available experimental data and flow characteristics such as stagnation point situation and the location of maximum wall temperature as two important facts. These comparisons showed reasonable agreement.

2019 ◽  
pp. 418-418
Author(s):  
Lizan Zangana ◽  
Ramzi Barwari

In this manuscript, both experimental and numerical investigations have been carried out to study the mechanism of separation energy and flow phenomena in the counter flow vortex tube. This manuscript presents a complete comparison between the experimental investigation and CFD analysis. The experimental model was manufactured with (total length of 104 mm and the inner diameter of 8 mm, and made of cast iron) tested under different inlet pressures (4, 5 and 6 bar). The thermal performance has been studied for hot and cold outlet temperature as a function of mass fraction ? (0.3- 0.8). Three-dimensional numerical modeling using the k-? model used with code (Fluent 6.3.26). Two types of velocity components are studied (axial and swirl). The results show any increase in both cold mass fraction and inlet pressure caused to increase ?Tc, and the maximum ?Tc value occurs at P = 6 bar. The coefficient of performance (COP) of two important factors in the vortex tube which are a heat pump and a refrigerator have been evaluated, which ranged from 0.25 to 0.74. A different axial location (Z/L = 0.2, 0.5, and 0.8) was modeled to evaluate swirl velocity and radial profiles, where the swirl velocity has the highest value. The maximum axial velocity is 93, where it occurs at the tube axis close to the inlet exit (Z/L=0.2). The results showed a good agreement for experimental and numerical analysis.


Processes ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 1531
Author(s):  
Qijun Xu ◽  
Jing Xie

In order to broaden the application of vortex tubes (VOTU) in industry and to improve the efficiency of cooling and heating, numerical simulations of vortex tubes were carried out. In this study, the temperature, velocity, and pressure fields of three VOTUs with inlet nozzles of 2, 3, and 6 were investigated at different inlet pressures based on previous experimental data and by three-dimensional numerical simulation. It was found that the increase of inlet pressure leads to the increase of energy separation between the hot and cold ends of the three VOTUs. As the number of inlets increases, the pressure difference between the tube wall and the core region gradually strengthens. In contrast, the pressure in the tube center is not affected by the inlet pressure. The number of nozzles affects the inlet and outlet temperatures of the VOTU. When the number of nozzles is 3, and the inlet pressure is 0.6 MPa, the VOTU shows the maximum hot and cold outlet temperature difference of 66 K. The maximum velocity of VOTU appears at the connection of the inlet and vortex chamber, so the inlet is tangential to VOTU, which is beneficial to reduce the loss of gas energy. The wall thickness of the inlet increases gradually to avoid the high-speed gas flow on the erosion of the wall surface. This study has profound guidance for the one-dimensional design of VOTUs.


2013 ◽  
Vol 397-400 ◽  
pp. 205-208
Author(s):  
Wen Chuan Wang ◽  
Xiang Jun Fang ◽  
Shi Long Liu ◽  
Wen Long Sun

This paper aims to investigate fixed composition natural gases including N2, CH4 and C2H4 energy separation effect in vortex tube. Energy separation phenomena of those gases were investigated by means of three-dimensional Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) method. Flow fields of natural gases in fixed inlet boundary conditions were simulated. The results main factors were found that affect the energy separation with cold mass fraction being 0.7 and pressure drop ratio being 3.90. At the same time, this paper has illustrated the effects and tendencies of energy separation with gases in the tube under the same cold mass flow fraction and cold pressure ratio. The results show mixture gases total temperature difference effect is unchanged varied with the cold mass fraction; CH4% has no effect on the vortex cold end temperature separation, but varied of CH4% has an influence in total temperature and hot end separation effect; total temperature separation effect of CH4% was divided into two sections, one is0%-80%, and the other 80%-100%.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1191-1201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nader Pourmahmoud ◽  
Alireza Izadi ◽  
Amir Hassanzadeh ◽  
Ashkan Jahangiramini

In this article computational fluid dynamics analysis of a three-dimensional compressible and turbulent flow has been carried out through a vortex tube. The standard k-? turbulence model is utilized in order to simulate an axisymmetric computational domain. The numerical simulation has focused on the energy separation and flow field patterns of a somewhat nonconventional vortex tube, which is on the basis of creating an external hole at the end of each nozzle. According to the selected nozzles geometry, some of unfavorable phenomena such as shock wave, high pressure regions and appearing of unsymmetrical rotating flow patterns in the vortex chamber would be recovered significantly. In this way the physical parameters of flow field are derived under different both inlet mass flow rates and outlet pressures of nozzles hole (OPH). The results show that increasing OPH value enhanced the cooling capacity of machine in the most of operating conditions.


Author(s):  
Jifeng Wang ◽  
Norbert Mu¨ller

This paper presents computational investigation of the flow in composite material axial water turbines using Finite Volume based commercial CFD package namely Fluent. Based on three dimensional numerical flow analysis and fluid-structure interaction, the flow characteristics of water turbines including nozzle, impeller and diffuser are predicted. Two particulare cases are studied and compared. The extract power of water turbine in different rotating speed and water inlet velocity are analyzed. The calculated results will provide a fundamental understanding of the impeller as water turbine, and this design method is used to shorten the design period and improve the water turbine’s performance.


Author(s):  
Bin Wu ◽  
Tom Roesel ◽  
Andrew M. Arnold ◽  
Zhaojiang Xu ◽  
Eugene Arnold ◽  
...  

A reheating furnace is a critical component in value-added steel production. These furnaces can have a significant impact on product quality and total cost. Due to the higher efficiency of regenerative burners, a growing number of reheating furnaces are using this technology. To better understand the regenerative burner operation, a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis has been conducted to examine the transient and three dimensional flow characteristics in the No.3 reheating furnace at ArcelorMittal Steelton. Simulation results with traditional burners and regenerative burners have been analyzed to understand the effect of retrofitting a furnace with these more modern burners. The temperature distribution on the billets has also been monitored throughout the simulated heating process providing insight into the optimization of billet residence time and improvement of the product quality control process.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
T. Dutta ◽  
K. P. Sinhamahapatra ◽  
S. S. Bandyopadhyay

Study of the energy separation phenomenon in vortex tube (VT) at cryogenic temperature (temperature range below 123 K) has become important because of the potential application of VT as in-flight air separator in air breathing propulsion. In the present study, a CFD model is used to simulate the energy separation phenomenon in VT with gaseous air at cryogenic temperature as working fluid. Energy separation at cryogenic temperature is found to be considerably less than that obtained at normal atmospheric temperature due to lower values of inlet enthalpy and velocity. Transfer of tangential shear work from inner to outer fluid layers is found to be the cause of energy separation. A parametric sensitivity analysis is carried out in order to optimize the energy separation at cryogenic temperature. Also, rates of energy transfer in the form of sensible heat and shear work in radial and axial directions are calculated to investigate the possible explanation of the variation of the hot and cold outlet temperatures with respect to various geometric and physical input parameters.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (6) ◽  
pp. 3977-3980

A numerical analysis is carried out to understand the flow characteristics for different impeller configurations of a single stage centrifugal blower. The volute design is based on constant velocity method. Four different impeller configurations are selected for the analysis. Impeller blade geometry is created with point by point method. Numerical simulation is carried out by CFD software GAMBIT 2.4.6 and FLUENT 6.3.26. GAMBIT work includes geometry definition and grid generation of computational domain. This process includes selection of grid types, grid refinements and defining correct boundary conditions. Processing work is carried out in FLUENT. The viscous Navier-Stokes equations are solved with control volume approach and the k-ε turbulence model. In this three dimensional numerical analysis is carried out with steady flow approach. The rotor and stator interaction is solved by mixing plane approach. Results of simulation are presented in terms of flow parameters, at impeller outlet and various angular positions inside the volute. Also, the contours of flow properties are presented at the outlet plane of fluid domain. Results suggest that for the same configurations of centrifugal blower, as we change geometrical parameter of impeller the flow inside the blower get affected.


2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 18
Author(s):  
Kiran Dattatraya Devade ◽  
Ashok T. Pise ◽  
Atul R. Urade

The vortex tube is an energy separation device that separates compressed gas stream into a low and a high temperature stream. Present work reports the flow behavior inside the vortex tube for different commonly used fluids with varied properties like Air, He, N2, CO2 and NH3. Flow behavior investigation for three-dimensional short straight-diverging vortex tube is done with CFD code (ANSYS 16.0). Different turbulent models, standard k-epsilon, Realizable k-epsilon and RNG k-epsilon are tested. Realizable k-epsilon model was then used for analysis. Flow behavior of gases with varied multi-atomic number is analyzed and compared with literature. The effect on temperature for N2 is found to be better, followed by He, CO2, Air and NH3. Energy separation for N2 is 46 % higher than all other gases. Energy separation and flow behavior inside vortex tube is analyzed and compared with literature.


2005 ◽  
Vol 19 (28n29) ◽  
pp. 1723-1726 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Y. LIU ◽  
M. Q. GONG ◽  
Y. ZHANG ◽  
H. HONG ◽  
J. F. WU

An application of CFD model for the simulation of a strongly swirling and high speed flow in the vortex tube is presented in this paper. A partly modified standard K-ε turbulent model has been used to investigate the flow characteristics and energy separation effect in the vortex tube. It is found that there is an obvious energy separation effect in the vortex tube and the numerical solutions of the flow and temperature fields agree well with the experiments. More detailed flow features are obtained by the CFD calculation. Based on the validated numerical model, the influence of the cold flow fraction on the energy separation effect is also investigated and compared with experimental results.


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