Taking compressed air as the working medium, the performances of energy separation and temperature distribution in various kinds of vortex tubes are experimentally studied. Temperature distribution and refrigerating effect curve in vortex tubes are attained. The results show that the refrigerating effect of vortex tube with four nozzles is better than the other three kinds of vortex tube under the condition of ordinary temperature and 0.7 MPa pressure, and the refrigerating effect of vortex tube with six nozzles is worst in the four kinds of vortex tube. The refrigerating effect of nozzle with Achimid curve is best compared with other kinds of curves. The experiment shows that there is a boundary between cold and hot airflow at 0.7R of the tube, where cold airflow is inside the boundary and hot airflow is outside the boundary.