THE FLOW FIELD INSIDE A RANQUE-HILSCH VORTEX TUBE PART I: EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS USING PLANAR FILTERED RAYLEIGH SCATTERING

Abstract

The flow field of a Ranque-Hilsch vortex tube is characterized experimentally. Firstly conventional probe based technology is used in order to measure inlet and outlet temperatures as well as to acquire temporally resolved wall pressure data over a wide range of operating conditions. Secondly the filtered Rayleigh scattering technique is employed in order to gather detailed temporally averaged planar information on the vortex tube’s flow topology. These measurements form the basis of a detailed numerical study in part II of this contribution.