We have vortex cooler inside our FTICR mass spectrometer - its a really easy way to cool the pre-amplifier which is inside the bore of a superconducting magnet. You can easily supply (dry) compressed air, no moving parts, no moisture risks, no maintenance, just works.
These things are super useful in a workshop. I use one every now and then for installing bearings.
I use the hot side to heat and expand the housing, and the cold side to cool and "shrink" the bearing. It allows for easier fitment before both entities equalise thermally and form a nice interference fit.
Back in my high school days, I did a summer program called Operation Catapult, at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Everyone there would build a working model of a device they were interested in. I chose a vortex tube - I don't remember where I'd heard about them. I co-designed it, and then someone else fabricated pieces of it out of plastic tubes, and I assembled it, and it sort-of worked! The hot end got a bit warm, but the cold end pretty much stayed at room temperature.
One place vortex tubes are used (or at least were) was to cool drinking water in railroad locomotives. There was a regulation that required cool water to be available for the engineers. A heat pump might break down and take the entire locomotive out of service. But a working locomotive has to have compressed air, so they'd use a bit of compressed air through a vortex tube to cool their drinking water.
Back when I painted airplanes in the Air Force we could either wear a full face respirator or a hood with a vortex tube. I loved the hood/vortex option as this was in Arizona. It was like walking around in a personalized air conditioned suit. They were adjustable to user preferences and I would often get ice forming on my vortex tube as I always had it maxed out on cold air to my hood/suit.
Back in 1974, my best friend built one of these for the 6th grade science fair. I ended up winning, but I always felt that he deserved the 1st place, and only lost because the (teacher) judges didn’t understand it. 😄
I bought one off of the Snap-On Truck 40 years ago. I used it for testing carburetor automatic chokes and expansion valves. It is called a Choke Tester and I never knew how it worked until now. I thought it must have a mini turbine in it. You just solved a mystery I've been bothered with since 1986. Thanks.
Aerodynamicist here, this video has some of the most intuitive explanations of gas dynamics I’ve ever seen - perfect teaching material. Thank you, Steve!
As a refrigeration tech this is insanely interesting. It's funny how you can ask "what makes the air cold" and for both types of cooling the answer is "compresssor"
The hardest part of building a cold generator is figuring out how to hide the gigantic air pressure tank
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I use the hot side to heat and expand the housing, and the cold side to cool and "shrink" the bearing. It allows for easier fitment before both entities equalise thermally and form a nice interference fit.
One place vortex tubes are used (or at least were) was to cool drinking water in railroad locomotives. There was a regulation that required cool water to be available for the engineers. A heat pump might break down and take the entire locomotive out of service. But a working locomotive has to have compressed air, so they'd use a bit of compressed air through a vortex tube to cool their drinking water.
"Woe unto your theory if you think you've broken the second law of
thermodynamics"
sick