Make: Online : The Hilsch Vortex tube...

The Hilsch Vortex tube...

Hilsch234
Old Amateur Scientist article, might need to (re)make this to see if it really works - "With nothing more than a few pieces of plumbing and a source of compressed air, you can build a remarkably simple device for attaining moderately low temperatures. It separates high-energy molecules from those of low energy. George O. Smith, an engineer of Rumson, N. I., discusses its theory and construction" - Link.

Comments

Oldest comments listed first.

Posted by: pffffft on May 11, 2006 at 8:20 PM

Apparently these do work as you can buy them commercially at http://www.exair.com/commerce/ under their vortex tubes section.

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Posted by: kai_h on May 11, 2006 at 8:24 PM

See also the article on Wikipedia about Maxwell's Demon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell's_demon
for an interesting perspective on this device.
There's also a link in the wiki article to the Vortex Tume:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vortex_tube
with a slightly different design.

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Posted by: DGary on May 12, 2006 at 9:04 AM

My dad's on the tailend of building one, roughly based on the drawings above.

He's actually pretty much done with it, just hasn't hooked it up to a compresser yet, for reasons yet unknown to me, he keeps fiddling with it instead. "Pre-emptive improvements" I call it.

I'll see if I can get these pictures he sent over scanned and posted in an appended post later today.

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Posted by: DGary on May 13, 2006 at 3:14 PM

Flickr Hilsch Tube Gallery

Only got 3 scanned, but they show the major components.

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Posted by: M Bidot on March 10, 2009 at 10:41 PM

Vortex Tube

The Vortex Tube does work....although it has been slightly improved upon since Hilsch. I have a vortex tube set up on each of my cnc machines. http://www.arizonavortex.com is my supplier.

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