The phenomenon of temperature distribution in a rotating gas flow is known as the Ranque-Hilsch effect. The Ranque-Hilsch tube (R-H ) is a system that in absence of movable parts separates an air flow in two portions, cold and hot ones. In this work a R-H tube is constructed using low cost pieces. We showed that effect is dependent of some of its parameters like the: tube length, the exit diameter of cold air and the diameter of a cylindrical valve in the temperature gradient generated at its ends. As result a configuration of the tube is obtained that optimizes the temperature difference of the flow. The R-H tube is constructed with materials of low cost and easy to obtain, which facilitates its assembly in order to illustrate some phenomena in fluid mechanics and thermodynamics labs in engineering and physics courses.
Ranque-Hilsch effect; vortex flow; temperature separation
