SEAN MOBBERLEY

/Ranque-HilshVortexTube

A vortex tube is a device having no moving mechanical parts that converts an inlet stream of compressed air at an intermediate temperature into two exiting streams, one hot and one cold. On first inspection the device appears to defy the second law of thermodynamics (i.e. entropy of a system must increase) by simulating a Maxwell demon and producing simultaneous hot and cold air streams from an input stream at room temperature. However, vortex tubes operate fully within the bounds of thermodynamic law.

I became interested in the device through my introductory thermodynamics course work and I decided to use the device to practice my CAD modeling and prototyping skills as a freshman. The CAD model turned out well, but the same couldn’t be said for the PVC prototype I built: I didn’t have all of the right tools for the job and being a student I attempted to save some money by using glue that wasn’t exactly made for PVC. When I finally found some compressed gas that I was able to use, well, the results were not particularly pretty.

Fast forward a few years, and I have decided to take another stab at it with more advanced modeling software & more rugged plumbing.