UNIQUE PHOTO OF THE MONTH
Vortex Cooling Tube

As infrared thermographers in heavy industry, we are asked to monitor a multitude of bearings. Most of the time, the reported hot bearings cannot be taken off line for repair or replacement…they need to continue to run until a scheduled outage.

The image above shows a typical solution to keep the bearing operating… This customer has chosen to cool the bearing to keep it from creating heat related damage. They chose to use a vortex cooling tube.

The vortex cooling tube is a spot cooler using readily available compressed air… but, it is not just cooling by convection alone: it uses physics to create pressurized cold air! According to the vortex tube manufacturer, “with the turn of a knob, you can select the temperature… from -30°F to room temperature”. You simply open the compressed air valve and point the cold airstream nozzle at the bearing. There are no mechanical or moving parts - no electricity or refrigerant. Google it!

Pictured above, we show a thermal photo of the vortex cooler in action… Point P1 shows the temperature on the incoming compressed air hose (104°F). Point P2 shows the outlet temperature on the cold side (81.5°F) and the hot spot temp (139°F) on the cooler shows how hot the waste air gets when ejected out of the back or side of
the cooler.

The above photo was taken with Altheus Infrared’s new 640x480 pixel thermal imaging
camera.

If your company is not scanning with the proper equipment...you may be missing the details! Preventing failures requires consistent monitoring, proper access and a thermographer that knows what he is doing.