Track: Graduate Student Paper Competition

Abstract

Space cooling has a long history of adopting unconventional ways. The vortex tube cooling system (VTCS), a non-traditional cooling system with no moving parts is the subject of this research. It was designed using CAD and parameters culled from the literature. This system's design includes a control valve, a control valve, and a cold air orifice. To achieve the best cooling effect, unplasticized polyvinyl chloride (uPVC) material was employed in the design. By employing the hot and cold ends of the tube, it was feasible to segregate warm and cold air. The maximum amount of hot air in the atmosphere was found experimentally. The fraction discovered was then used to compute the inlet air pressure that offered the most cooling. In these two sets of testing, the inlet air pressure and mass percentage of hot air in the vortex tube were investigated. In the design of the vortex tube, ABAQUS finite element software was used (for simulation/visualization of properties such as pressure distribution, temperature distribution, and velocity) for both comparative and validation reasons. Physical experimentation yielded a temperature of 22.3°C, which was 9.4°C lower than the entrance air temperature. The finite element simulation projected a lower temperature of 18°C. When the hot air mass percentage was set to 80%, both the simulated model and the prototype showed the best cooling performance. At maximum cooling with an 80 percent hot air mass fraction, the input air pressure for the prototype and simulated model was 4 bar and 2.6 bar, respectively.

Keywords
Ranque-Hilsch Vortex Tube, Simulation, Cooling, Design.