DOI: 10.11648/j.ijmea.20261405.13 ISSN: 2330-0248

Numerical Investigation of the Performance of a Vortex Tube-Based Vehicle Cabin Cooling System

Sintayehu Endaylalu, Genet Degene
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The vortex tube is a fundamental device that produces two different temperatures and low-pressure flows from a single compressed, high-pressure, high-temperature flow. It is a stationary device used to separate the compressed air into cold and hot streams. Its function is based on the concept of air vortex stream movement. Conventional automotive air conditioning systems use refrigerants and vapor compression cycles, which contribute to high energy use and greenhouse emissions. Therefore, this work focused on a numerical study of the performance of a vortex tube for vehicle cabin cooling system applications by considering the inlet nozzles, cold-end diameter, and hot-tube length. The study was conducted with various inlet pressures from 4 to 7 bar, cold mass fractions from 0.3 to 0.5, and hot-tube parameters using a tube length of 106mm as a baseline, and also length-to-diameter ratios of 10, 15, and 20. The results show that increasing inlet pressure increases cooling capacity but reduces the coefficient of performance, while a higher cold mass fraction improves cooling load with moderate efficiency gains. The hot-tube length optimization showed that longer tubes slightly increase cooling capacity, but do not significantly improve the coefficient of performance, which indicates diminishing returns beyond a length-to-diameter ratio of approximately 10 to 15. Similarly, the cold-end diameter optimizations indicated that a strong influence was observed with the best configuration of hot tube length 115mm per unit tube diameter 1.4mm and 8 mm cold-end diameter at 4bar inlet pressure and cold mass fraction of 0.5 achieved a cooling load of 119W at COP 0.232. Finally, this study concludes that hot tube length offers incremental gains, while cold-end geometry is the key driver for improving vortex tube performance in vehicle cooling systems.

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