THERMAL SCIENCE

International Scientific Journal

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Zheng Wang

,

K. O. Suen

,

Zidong Zhao

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE INFLUENCES OF REFRIGERANTS’ THERMAL-PHYSICAL PROPERTIES ON TEMPERATURE SEPARATION EFFECT OF A VORTEX TUBE

ABSTRACT
The temperature separation effects of vortex tubes have been widely studied in open systems, using mainly air or N2 as the working fluid. When a vortex tube is employed in a closed thermal system, more fluid choices, such as refrigerants, could be considered. Different to air, refrigerants have quite varied thermal-physical properties, and research of the thermal-physical properties’ influence on the temperature separation effect is rather limited. Based on CFD simulated temperature separation effect of eight refrigerants (R152a, R290, R134a, R600a, R143a, R245fa, R227ea, and R218), this study attempts to gain a better insight into how their properties could be related to compare their temperature separation performance. The analysis shows for small mass-flow ratios at the cold end, the cooling effect can be assessed by the relative values of their isentropic expansion exponent. The results also suggest that a large thermal diffusivity and kinematic viscosity, and a small vapour density and Joule-Thomson coefficient would lead to better heating effects.
KEYWORDS
vortex tube, temperature separation effect, thermal-physical properties, refrigerants, CFD
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2022-09-26
PAPER REVISED: 2022-11-01
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2022-11-04
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2023-01-07
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI220926212W
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2023, VOLUME 27, ISSUE Issue 3, PAGES [2513 - 2524]
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An investigation into the influences of refrigerants’ thermal-physical properties on temperature separation effect of a vortex tube

© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence