Energy separation between co-axial swirling flows is a common phenomenon in counter-flow vortex tube. In this study, the energy analysis involving the terms of work and heat transfers is carried out with a help of a separator tube to verify the cooling process inside the vortex tube. The separator tube forms a novel part of this work, which gives a hint in verifying the theories of heat transfer and shear viscous work across the core and peripheral flow layers. The energy separation or Ranque-Hilsch effect is verified for different materials of separator tube, while the tube length remains constant across all operating conditions. Heat transfer by turbulent convection and shear work term are reported to understand the significance of contribution to energy separation. Separator tube suppresses the tangential work transfer from 130 W to 14 W, where almost 9/10 of the net energy transfer is decreased. It is found that 58% reduction in temperature separation with separator tube. This effect is increased to 77% and 90% with aluminum and poly vinyl chloride materials as separator tubes. It is found that predominant effect of temperature separation arises from tangential work transfer as compared to axial shear work and heat transfer.
R. Manimaran (Sun,) studied this question.