The energy separation in a vortex tube is a combined result of different factors and its explanation remains debatable. As a classical fluid mechanics phenomenon, understanding of the complex helical flow mechanism within a vortex tube is a necessary foundation. The small scale of an industrial vortex tube and the extremely complex flow conditions are the two main challenges in obtaining the internal flow properties. This paper reports the results of an experimental investigation on the flow behaviour within a confined cylindrical system having different configurations corresponding to the actual flow field in a vortex tube at different conditions. Transparent devices were used to enable flow visualisation and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurement. The results of the flow visualisation and PIV experiments show that a precessing vortex core is significant only in a specific range of swirling strength. A good agreement between the observed flow characteristics and previously published results was observed.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	vortex tube, PIV, proper orthogonal decomposition, processing vortex core
Research Division:	Engineering
Research Group:	Maritime engineering
Research Field:	Naval architecture
Objective Division:	Expanding Knowledge
Objective Group:	Expanding knowledge
Objective Field:	Expanding knowledge in engineering
UTAS Author:	Binns, JR (Professor Jonathan Binns)
ID Code:	151361
Year Published:	2022 (online first 2019)
Web of Science® Times Cited:	25
Deposited By:	NC Maritime Engineering and Hydrodynamics
Deposited On:	2022-07-28
Last Modified:	2022-09-12
Downloads:	0