LOW-PRESSURE VORTEX TUBES

The temperature separation effect, which is well known from standard v ortex tubes that are driven by compressed air, has been observed in a device where air is sucked into the tube by applying vacuum at the hot and the cold exit ports. Rather than depending on the absolute inlet pressure, the temperature separation was found to be a linear function of the normalized pressure drop X = (p(0) - p(c))/p(c) between the in let and the cold end of the vortex tube.