Vortex Tubes
What is a Vortex Tube?
A vortex tube is a centrifugal separation mechanism without any moving parts. Vortex tubes can separate solid particles from an air/gas stream thus allowing clean air/gas to exit the tube.
CFT vortex tubes are manufactured to operate in harsh environmental conditions without failure, manufactured from UV-stabilized polypropylene with a maximum recommended operating temperature of 80°C. The tubes are used where atmospheric dust must be removed from the air, as in the case of engine air inlets, compressor inlets and ventilation applications.
CFT filtration solutions consisting of vortex tubes have been used in numerous applications over the years in the following sectors:
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Aerospace
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Agricultural
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Automotive
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Military
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Mining
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Ventilation
The vortex tubes are excellently suited to protect machinery such as turbines and electrical equipment, and can accommodate a high flow per unit area. The use of these tubes can also extend the life span of media filters significantly due to the high separation efficiency of the tubes.
How Do The Tubes Work?
The Vortex Generator comprises of four blades turning through 180 degrees. When air flows through the tube, the vortex generator induces a swirl in the air. The resulting centrifugal force displaces the particles towards the wall of the tube. The cleaned air flows through the mouthpiece, while the separate dust particles are ejected through the bleed air opening.
The Tube aligns the mouthpiece and the vortex generator, thus creating a flow path for the air stream. There is a Bleed Air Opening in the tube through which the separated dust is ejected. Usually, the bleed air flow must be 10% of the inlet flow in order
to obtain optimal efficiency.
The Mouthpiece creates a physical barrier between the clean air and the dust-laden air thus forcing the dust-laden air out of the bleed air openings in the tube, whilst allowing clean air to pass through the middle. The mouthpiece is designed to effect optimal separation between the dust-laden air and clean air.
Since these vortex tubes don’t contain any moving parts they have very high reliability. These vortex tubes have been developed for numerous applications and thus exist in various sizes, though the operation of each size variant is identical.
The cohesion between numerous vortex tubes allows the CFT filtration technology to be easily scalable to any application. The amount of tubes that are used is determined by the flow requirements as well as the maximum pressure drop of the intended application. Solutions can vary from as little as twelve tubes to a couple thousand.
