Vortex Air COOLING

COOLING

COOLING SOLUTIONS

We provide a number of compressed air cooling solutions that are built to improve your company’s productivity, efficiency and safety. Whether it’s cooling an enclosure, cooling a person, or cooling down a product or part, we have perfected the design to provide quick, reliable cooling for your unique application.

ENCLOSURE COOLERS

  • Enclosure Coolers ensure enclosures, cabinets and electrical panels remain functional by:- Keeping electronics cool

    – Preventing tripped breakers

    – Closed loop enclosure cooling

    – Preventing contaminates from entering

    – Slight pressurization prevents dust, water and debris from entering

Enclosure Coolers keep Electrical and Electronic Enclosures cool, clean and protected and are a low-cost alternative to expensive, high-maintenance air conditioners; and avoid contamination with dirty, humid air caused by fans.

Today’s small, compact multi-function electronic controls, variable speed drives, servos and programmable logic controllers are extremely sensitive to heat and contamination. Smaller cabinet sizes make temperature control difficult and prone to premature failures. Excessive heat will cause digital displays to misread, controls to drift, and breakers to trip below rated loads. The result is productivity lost due to machine or line shutdowns.

Vortex Enclosure Air Conditioning Coolers maintain a slight pressurization in the cabinet to keep electrical and electronic components clean and dry, and most are thermostatically controlled to maintain enclosure temperatures within a specified temperature range.

Vortec offers multiple types of enclosure cooling systems to meet your enclosure cooling needs, all available in a variety of cooling capacities and hazardous locations; Atex & UL certified models.

Cooling using Vortex technology is reliable and inexpensive! If you are cooling an enclosure please scroll down to our many options in enclosure cooling: our standard vortex cooling (available in Nema 12, 4, 4x), our vortex A/C cooling with mechanical thermostat and quiet operation (Nema 12, 4/4x, Haz Loc, ProtEX, and ATEX)!

MACHINE AND SPOT COOLING:

COLD AIR GUNS

  • Cold Air Guns provide adjustable cooling that can extend product life and improve efficiency by:- Cooling metalworking operations

    – Machining of plastics, composites, woods and rubber

    – Cooling for quality control

    – Cooling surface grinding, drilling, and tool sharpening

    – Spot cooling of parts, molds and assemblies

Versatile Spot Cooling for Machining, Repair Shops and More

Cold Air Guns use vortex tube technology and filtered compressed air to produce sub-freezing air as low as -30 deg F for numerous industrial spot cooling applications. With no moving parts to wear out, Cold-Air Guns require no electricity at the target, just a compressed air source.

Cold Air Guns are most often used for cooling of metal parts, in the machining and repair of metals, plastics, wood, ceramics and other materials. Cold air machining outperforms mist coolants and substantially increases tool life and feed rates on dry machining operations. The effective air cooling from a Cold Air Gun can eliminate heat-related parts growth while improving parts tolerance and surface finish quality. Air Gun Nozzles have adjustable temperature and flow settings; and some models have a frost free nozzle to eliminate mess from frost and condensation.

PERSONAL AIR CONDITIONER (PAC)

  • Vortec’s Personal Air Conditioners are an effective, stationary cooling solution that allows workers to:- Maintain comfort

    – Minimize worker heat stress and fatigue

    – Ensure employee safety

    – Reduce frequency and duration of non-productive cooling breaks

    – Eliminates the need to cool large warehouse or shop areas

Workers in extreme temperatures wear Personal Air Conditioners (PACs) to minimize heat stress and fatigue.  The PAC’s improve comfort and productivity.

Vortec personal cooling vests have two components:

  • a cooling tube with belt that generates cold air to provide air flow to the worker
  • a diffuse cooling vest through which the cold air flows to cool the worker’s torso

PACs are available in two cooling capacities; 1500 BTUH and 2500 BTUH.   All models can achieve temperature differentials of +/- 45 – 60 deg F from the inlet compressed air temperature using vortex tube technology. These models are adjustable by the worker using an integral temperature adjustment knob.

The diffuse air vests are available in three sizes; large, xlarge, and xxlarge which provides continuous cooled air through its perforated inner lining. The durable plasticized PVC vest allows a full range of motion with no airflow restrictions, and does not absorb sweat or other contaminants. Body cooling vests can also be worn under other protective clothing.

*Note: NIOSH approves only complete Supplied Air Respirators (SAR) Systems. None of the Vortec Personal Air Conditioner products listed above are approved for use with a respirator system. More can be found about the requirements in CRF 84.131

PROCESS AND SPOT COOLING

  • Vortex Tubes provide reliable process cooling and work in a number of applications by:- Providing instant cooling

    – Adjustable cooling options

    – Ensures safety by containing no moving parts or blades

    – Lowest maintenance requirements of any refrigeration techniques

    – Easy installation

    Vortex tubes produce up to 6000 BTU/hr (1757 watts) of refrigeration and temperatures as low as -40 deg to solve a variety of industrial spot cooling and process cooling needs. With no moving parts, a vortex tube is highly reliable and inexpensive; and requires no electrical connection at the cooling site. Vortex tubes cool instantly, relying on compressed air spinning in the tube to separate the air into cold and hot air streams.

    Vortex tubes are a compact source of refrigeration and cooling, with models ranging from 6 – 13 inches (150 – 330 mm) long and cooling capacities ranging from 100 – 6000 BTU/hour (29 – 1757 watts). Vortex tube performance is easily adjustable by changing the inlet air pressure, ratio of cool air to exhaust or by changing the generator in the tube itself. And while normally used for cooling, vortex tubes can also be used for heating applications, merely by channeling the exhaust hot air to the application.

    Vortex tube technology was invented by French physicist Georges Ranque in 1930, and first developed for industrial use by Vortec in the 1960s. See how it works. Since then, vortex tubes have been applied for a wide range of cooling applications on machines, assembly lines, in processes and for testing and measurements.

The Vortex Tube is IDEAL and efficient for many cooling applications:

  • cool machining operations; set solders

  • set adhesives; dehumidify gas samples

  • cool mold tooling

  • cool electronic control cabinets

  • temperature cycle thermostats,

  • instruments, and electronics

  • cool workers in protective garments

  • test temperature sensors

  • cool industrial sewing needles

  • cool through evaporation

Vortex tubes are a compact source of refrigeration and cooling, with models ranging from 6 – 13 inches (150 – 330 mm) long and cooling capacities ranging from 100 – 6000 BTU/hour (29 – 1757 watts). Vortex tube performance is easily adjustable by changing the inlet air pressure, ratio of cool air to exhaust or by changing the generator in the tube itself. And while normally used for cooling, vortex tubes can also be used for heating applications, merely by channeling the exhaust hot air to the application.
Vortex tube technology was invented by French physicist Georges Ranque in 1930, and first developed for industrial use by Vortec in the 1960s.  Since then, vortex tubes have been applied for a wide range of cooling applications on machines, assembly lines, in processes and for testing and measurements.

Benefits

  • Cools instantaneously
  • Lowest cost per unit of refrigeration of any cooling technique
  • Fully adjustable cooling, easily moved from site to site as needed
  • Fits to provide cooling in the most confined areas
  • Lowest maintenance requirements of any refrigeration technique
  • Environmentally friendly, with no refrigerants or chemicals needed
  • Easy to install, just connect compressed air and go

Features

  • Maintenance free, with no moving parts
  • Cycle repeatability within +/- 1 deg
  • Drops compressed air inlet temperature by up to 100 deg F (55 deg C)
  • No electricity required at the cooling site
  • Cools without refrigerants, as low as -40 deg
  • Compact and lightweight, highly transportable
  • Adjustable for varying cooling needs
  • Available heating capacity using the same tube, up to 200 deg F (93 deg C)
  • Available in both aluminum (208 and 308) and stainless steel (208SS) models
  • Replacement generators available for modification of cooling or upon contamination

Specifications

Model# 106-2-H 106-4-H 106-8-H 208-11-H
Material of Construction Brass/Stainless Steel Brass/Stainless Steel Brass/Stainless Steel Aluminum
Inlet, inch, NPT 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/4
Cooling Capacity (BTU/hr) 100 200 400 640
Air Consumption @ 100 psig (scfm) 2 4 8 11
Inlet, Female or Male F F F F

 

Model# 208-15-H 208-25-H 208-11-HSS 208-15-HSS
Material of Construction Aluminum Aluminum Stainless Steel Stainless Steel
Inlet, inch, NPT 1/4 1/4 1/4 1/4
Cooling Capacity (BTU/hr) 900 1500 640 900
Air Consumption @ 100 psig (scfm) 15 25 11 15
Inlet, Female or Male F F M M

 

Model# 208-25-HSS 308-35-H 328-50-H 328-75-H 328-100-H
Material of Construction Stainless Steel Aluminum Aluminum Aluminum Aluminum
Inlet, inch, NPT 1/4 1/4 1/2 1/2 1/2
Cooling Capacity (BTU/hr) 1500 2650 3000 4500 6000
Air Consumption @ 100 psig (scfm) 25 35 50 75 100
Inlet, Female or Male M F M M M
Model# 106-2-H 106-4-H 106-8-H 208-11-H
Material of Construction Brass/Stainless Steel Brass/Stainless Steel Brass/Stainless Steel Aluminum
Inlet, inch, NPT 1/8 1/8 1/8 1/4
Cooling Capacity (watts) 29 59 117 188
Air Consumption @ 6.9 bar (slpm) 57 113 226 311
Inlet, Female or Male F F F F

 

Model# 208-15-H 208-25-H 208-11-HSS 208-15-HSS
Material of Construction Aluminum Aluminum Stainless Steel Stainless Steel
Inlet, inch, NPT 1/4 1/4 1/4 1/4
Cooling Capacity (watts) 264 440 188 264
Air Consumption @ 6.9 bar (slpm) 425 708 311 425
Inlet, Female or Male F F M M

 

Model# 208-25-HSS 308-35-H 328-50-H 328-75-H 328-100-H
Material of Construction Stainless Steel Aluminum Aluminum Aluminum Aluminum
Inlet, inch, NPT 1/4 1/4 1/2 1/2 1/2
Cooling Capacity (watts) 440 777 879 1319 1758
Air Consumption @ 6.9 bar (slpm) 708 991 1415 2123 2830
Inlet, Female or Male M F M M M

Vortex Tubes

Air that rotates around an axis (like a tornado) is called a vortex. A vortex tube creates cold air and hot air by forcing compressed air through a generation chamber, which spins the air at a high rate of speed (1,000,000 rpm) into a vortex. The high speed air heats up as it spins along the inner walls of the tube toward the control valve. A percentage of the hot, high speed air is permitted to exit at the valve. The remainder of the (now slower) air stream is forced to counterflow up through the center of the high speed air stream in a second vortex. The slower moving air gives up energy in the form of heat and becomes cooled as it spins up the tube. The inside counterflow vortex exits the opposite end as extremely cold air. Vortex tubes generate temperatures as much as 100 deg F (56 deg C) below the inlet air temperature. The fraction of hot air exhausted can be varied to change the outlet cold air temperature, with more exhaust resulting in a colder cold air stream (with lower flow rate), and less exhaust resulting in a warmer cold air stream (and higher flow rate).
Vortex Air COOLING