Tag: cold fraction

Vortex Tubes: What is Cold Fraction?

Published on by johnball2014Leave a comment

EXAIR has written many different articles about how Vortex Tubes work and the applications in which they are used.  The idea of making cold air without any freon or moving parts is a phenomenon of physics that has been referred to by many names including Ranque Tube, Ranque-Hilsch Tube and Maxwell’s Demon.  The modern name is Vortex Tube.  It can generate cold air to a temperature as low as -50 oF (-46 oC) simply by spinning compressed air at high RPM.  In this article, I will explain the adjustment of the Vortex Tube to get different temperatures and cooling effects with reference to the Cold Fraction.

To give a basic background on the EXAIR Vortex Tubes, we manufacture them in three different body sizes: small, medium, and large.  These sizes can produce a range of cooling capacities, from 135 BTU/hr to 10,200 BTU/hr (34 Kcal/hr to 2,570 Kcal/hr).  The unique design utilizes a generator inside each Vortex Tube.  To read more about the type of generators, you can find this here: Maximum Effort!!! The Two Types of Vortex Tube Generators. The generator controls the amount of compressed air that can enter the Vortex Tube as well as initiating the spinning of the air inside.  As an example, a medium-sized Vortex Tube, model 3240, will only allow 40 SCFM (1,133 SLPM) of compressed air to travel into the Vortex Tube at 100 PSIG (6.9 bar).  While a small Vortex Tube, model 3208, will only allow 8 SCFM (227 SLPM) of compressed air at 100 PSIG (6.9 bar).  EXAIR manufactures the most comprehensive range, from 2 SCFM (57 SLPM) to 150 SCFM (4,248 SLPM).

After the compressed air goes through the generator, the pressure will drop to slightly above atmospheric pressure.  (This is the “engine” of how the Vortex Tube works.)  The air will travel toward one end of the tube, where there is an air control valve, or Hot Air Exhaust Valve.  This side of the Vortex Tube will blow hot air.  This valve can be adjusted to increase or decrease the amount of air that leaves the hot end.  The remaining portion of the air is redirected toward the opposite end of the Vortex Tube, called the cold end.  By conservation of mass, the hot air and cold air flows will have to equal the inlet flow, as shown in Equation 1:

Equation 1:

Q = Qc + Qh

Q – Vortex Inlet Flow (SCFM/SLPM)

Qc – Cold Air Flow (SCFM/SLPM)

Qh – Hot Air Flow (SCFM/SLPM)

The percentage of inlet air flow that exits the cold end of a vortex tube is known as the Cold Fraction.  As an example, if the Hot Air Exhaust Valve of the Vortex Tube is adjusted to allow only 20% of the air flow to escape from the hot end, then 80% of the air flow is redirected toward the cold end.  EXAIR uses this ratio as the Cold Fraction; reference Equation 2:

Equation 2:

CF = Qc/Q * 100

CF = Cold Fraction (%)

Qc – Cold Air Flow (SCFM/SLPM)

Q – Vortex Inlet Flow (SCFM/SLPM)

EXAIR created a chart to show the temperature drop and rise relative to the incoming compressed air temperature.  Across the top of the chart, we have the Cold Fraction, and along the side, we have the inlet air pressure.  As you can see, the temperature changes as the Cold Fraction and inlet air pressure changes.  As the percentage of the Cold Fraction becomes smaller, the cold air flow becomes colder, but the amount of cold air flow becomes less.  You may notice that this chart is independent of the Vortex Tube size.  So, no matter the size of the Vortex Tube that is used, the temperature drop and rise will follow the chart below.

EXAIR Vortex Tube Performance Chart

How do you use this chart?  As an example, we can select a model 3240 Vortex Tube.  It will use 40 SCFM (1133 SLPM) of compressed air at 100 PSIG (6.9 Bar).  We can determine the temperature and amount of air that will flow from the cold end and the hot end.  For our scenario, we will set the inlet pressure to 100 PSIG, and adjust the Hot Exhaust Valve to allow for a 60% Cold Fraction.  Let’s say the inlet compressed air temperature is 68oF.  With Equation 2, we can rearrange the values to find the Cold Air Flow, Qc:

Qc = CF * Q

Qc = 0.60 * 40 SCFM = 24 SCFM of cold air flow

The temperature drop shown in the chart above is 86oF.  If the inlet temperature is 68oF, the temperature of the cold air is (68oF – 86oF) = -18oF.  So, at the cold end, we will have 24 SCFM of air at a temperature of -18oF.  For the hot end, we can calculate the flow and temperature as well.  From Equation 1,

Q = Qc + Qh or

Qh = Q – Qc

Qh = 40 SCFM – 24 SCFM = 16 SCFM

The temperature rise shown in the chart above is 119oF.  So, with the inlet temperature at 68oF, we get (119oF + 68oF) = 187oF.  So, we have 16 SCFM of air at a temperature of 187oF coming out of the hot end.

With the Cold Fraction and inlet air pressure, you can get specific temperatures for your application.  For cooling and heating capacities, flow and temperature can be used to calculate the correct Vortex Tube size for your application.  If you need help determining the proper Vortex Tube to best support your application, you can contact an Application Engineer at EXAIR.  We will be glad to help.

John Ball
Application Engineer
Email: johnball@exair.com
Twitter: @EXAIR_jb

Exorcising Maxwell’s Demon – Not Really

Published on by Brian FarnoLeave a comment

We all have our demons, and James Clerk Maxwell was no different. While he and I weren’t close, I have gotten to know one of his demons over the past 13 years. Okay, so in all seriousness, James Clerk Maxwell is a well-known Scottish Mathematician who throughout his life discovered a way to break the second law of thermodynamics and that became known as Maxwell’s Demon. So what exactly was his demon?

It was in 1867 when Maxwell wrote a letter and described his first encounter with the theory. In this letter, he wrote he spoke of a “finite being” that would control a massless door that separated two chambers of gas. This door would be opened and closed to permit a faster-moving molecule into the fast chamber, which also carried more heat, and then the slower-moving particles from the hot chamber into the slow chamber which was also cooling constantly. Because the velocity of a gas is dependent on the kinetic temperature of the molecule and its surrounding molecules. Since the demon was separating the hot and cold molecules it would permit one chamber to warm up while the other chamber cools down below ambient air conditions. This in turn decreases the total entropy of the system yet doesn’t do any work. Thus, violating the great second law of thermodynamics.

It wasn’t Maxwell that related this “finite being” to a demon, instead it was William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin who we associate absolute temperatures with in order to pay our respects of all his work. Lord Kelvin originally, published the thoughts in response to letters that Maxwell had written to other scholars. Kelvin did not mean for this to be a correlation with the malevolent being instead to be related to a daemon from Greek mythology which is a supernatural being who performs work behind the scenes. So why do we connect Maxwell’s demon to anything to do with an Intelligent Compressed Air Product?

In the spirit of Maxwell’s Demon, the separation of air molecules into a cold and hot air stream, without work being done can be directly related to a Vortex Tube. The Vortex Tube does exactly this, as an air stream enters the compressed air inlet, the air enters into the generator chamber where it is spun at very high speeds and sent down what is called the hot tube. As the air is spinning and traveling, it separates into a hot and cold air stream. The cold air is then sent down and out the cold end of the Vortex Tube while the hot air stream is exhausted out the hot end.

How a Vortex Tube Works

The percentage of cold air exit vs hot air exit is deemed the cold fraction and effects the temperature drop and rise for the respective stream of air. This gives us the ability to slightly control the demon, and thus we learn how to make this supernatural being work for us, and thus we never break the second law of thermodynamics, it’s actually this demon.

EXAIR Vortex Tube Performance Chart

In all seriousness, this thought experiment still continues to be a talk of physicists, mathematicians and scholars. They utilize Vortex Tubes in experiments to better understand how Maxwell came up with this thought and just how can they control this supernatural being.

If you would like to discuss how to utilize a Vortex Tube in your application or any of the EXAIR product lines, contact any Application Engineer today.

Brian Farno
Application Engineer
BrianFarno@EXAIR.com
@EXAIR_BF

What You Can Do With A Vortex Tube…And What You Can’t

Published on by Russ BowmanLeave a comment

Vortex Tubes are near the top of the list of the most interesting uses of compressed air: Cold (and hot) air, generated instantly, from a device with no moving parts. Why don’t we use them for EVERYTHING? It’s not that it CAN’T be done, but it can be impractical to do so. Consider:

While researching our Cabinet Cooler Systems, some callers will ask about using this technology to cool a space larger than an electrical panel, like a server room. I spoke with just such a caller once, who had 7.5kW worth of heat estimated in a server room that was under construction, and had been asked to research cooling solutions…so we did:

  • Since 1 watt equals 3.41 Btu/hr, 7.5 kilowatts equals 25,575 Btu/hr worth of cooling required.
  • Our highest capacity single Cabinet Cooler generates a cooling capacity of 2,800 Btu/hr, so we talked about ten of them, for ~10% safety factor, which was reasonable for the purposes of our discussion.
  • Each 2,800 Btu/hr Cabinet Cooler uses 40 SCFM @100psig, for a total of 28,000 SCFM. Using a common thumbrule that says a typical industrial air compressor generates 4 SCFM per horsepower, that means they’d need a 100HP compressor (or that much capacity from their whole system) just to run these Cabinet Coolers. Adding that cooling capacity to their HVAC requirements made more sense.

Of course, with every rule, there’s an exception: an independent crane operator carries a Model 3250 Large Vortex Tube with him for cab cooling in the tower cranes he’s contracted to operate. While the US Department of Energy considers “personnel cooling” to be an inappropriate use of compressed air, the small fans typically found in these cranes’ cabs offer little comfort to an operator spending all day, 50 feet off the ground, in the summer heat of the Deep South!

EXAIR offers 24 distinct Vortex Tube models with cooling capacities from 135 Btu/hr to 10,200 Btu/hr.

Another common question regards the use of a Vortex Tube with another EXAIR product…the most common being an Air Knife. These callers want to blow cold air onto something, but instead of the conical and relatively small flow pattern the Vortex Tube discharges, they want to blow a curtain of cold air. The design & function of both the Vortex Tube, and the Air Knife, work against this idea:

  • The cold air has to exit the Vortex Tube at, or very near, atmospheric pressure. If it encounters much back pressure at all, performance (as measured by the temperature and flow rate of the cold air) will deteriorate.
  • An Air Knife, by design, is pressurized all the way to the point where the compressed air flow exits the 0.002″ thick gap. That’s far too much back pressure for a Vortex Tube to operate under.
  • Even if the Vortex Tube DID supply cold air, under pressure, to the Air Knife, the tremendous amount of environmental air entrained by the Air Knife would still result in a total developed flow temperature that was much closer to ambient temperature for the area.
Since the Super Air Knife entrains air from the surrounding environment at a rate of 40:1, the resultant air temperature, regardless of the temperature of the air supply, is always going to be pretty close to ambient.

One “workaround” for this is what we informally call a “cold air knife” – that’s when you plumb the cold air from a Vortex Tube into a length of pipe with a series of holes drilled along its length. Let’s say a building products manufacturer wanted to blow cold air across a 10ft wide continuous sheet of roofing material…because they did:

  • I recommended that they take a PVC (because it’s non-conductive and wouldn’t transfer heat from ambient as fast) pipe a little longer than 10ft, cap the ends, drill 1/8″ holes every inch (total of 120 holes).
  • From the table below, we see that a 1/8″ diameter hole can flow as much as 1.1 cubic feet per minute @1psig*, so 120 of those holes will pass ~132 cubic feet per minute worth of air flow.
  • Four Model 3240 Vortex Tubes were specified: when set to an 80% Cold Fraction, 80% of the 40 SCFM that each will consume, or 32 SCFM, is directed to the cold end. 32 SCFM X 4 3240’s = 128 SCFM. Close enough. They plumbed those 4 Vortex Tubes at approximate equal distances along the length.
*I picked 2psig because that’s the maximum back pressure before it starts to change performance. I also assumed we’re not going to round the entrance of the holes, so I applied the 0.61 multiplier from the table notes.

A Model 3215 Medium Vortex Tube supplied @100psig will flow 10 SCFM worth of cold air when set to a 67% Cold Fraction**, which will give us a curtain of cold air that’s a little more than 71°F colder than the compressed air supply:

**When set to a 70% Cold Fraction (that means 70% of the compressed air supply flow is directed to the cold end), the cold flow from a Vortex Tube supplied @100psig will be 71°F colder than the compressed air supply. At a 67% Cold Fraction, it’ll be a little colder than that.

If you’ve got an application involving the need for cold air, on demand, EXAIR has a variety of products that’ll do just that. Give me a call to find out more.

Russ Bowman, CCASS

Application Engineer
EXAIR Corporation
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Vortex Tube Cold Fraction and how it Affects Flow and Temperature Control

Published on by Jordan T ShouseLeave a comment

Vortex Tubes are the perfect solution when dealing with a variety of spot cooling applications. They use compressed air to produce a cold air stream and a hot air stream, with temperatures ranging from as low as -50°F  up to +260°F (based on ambient supply temperature) and providing as much as 10,200 Btu/hr. of cooling capacity. By simply adjusting the valve in the hot end of the Vortex Tube, you are able to control the “cold fraction” which is the percentage of air consumed by the vortex tube that is exhausted as cold air versus the amount of air exhausted as hot air. Our small, medium and large Vortex Tubes provide the same temperature drop and rise, it’s the volume of air that changes with the various sizes.

The unique physical phenomenon of the Vortex Tube principle generates cold air instantly, and for as long – or short – a time as needed.

When looking at the below performance chart, you will see that “Pressure Supply” and “Cold Fraction %” setting all play a part in changing the performance of the Vortex Tubes. Take for example, an operating pressure of 100 PSIG and cold fraction setting of 20%, you will see a 123°F drop on the cold side versus a 26°F temperature rise on the hot side. By the using the same Vortex Tube and keeping the operating pressure at 100 PSIG but changing the cold fraction to 80%, you will now see a 54°F temperature drop on the cold side and a 191° rise at the hot end.

Vortex Tube Performance Data
Vortex Tube Performance Chart

We’ve looked at how the cold fraction changes the temperature, but how does it change the flow for the various Models?

Say you are using a Model # 3240 Medium Vortex Tube which consumes 40 SCFM @ 100 PSIG. Again with the cold fraction set at 80% (80% of the consumed compressed air out of the cold end), you would flow 32 SCFM at the cold air exhaust.

40 SCFM x 0.8 (80% CF) = 32 SCFM

Using the same Model # 3240 Medium Vortex Tube but now with a 20% cold fraction (20% of consumed compressed air out of the cold end), you would flow 8 SCFM at the cold exhaust.

40 SCFM x 0.20 (20% CF) = 8 SCFM

As you can see, to achieve the colder air temperatures, the volume of cold air being exhausted is reduced as well. This is important to consider when making a Model selection. Some other considerations include the operating pressure which also has a significant effect on performance. The compressed air supply temperature is important because the above temperatures are temperature differentials, so in the example of the 80% cold fraction there is a 115F temperature drop from your inlet compressed air temperature.

If you need additional assistance, you can always contact myself or another application engineer and we would be happy to make the best selection to fit your specific need.

Jordan Shouse
Application Engineer

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