Flow Visualization in Computational Fluid Dynamics

Abstract

Several flow visualization techniques using the Lagran gian approach are proposed for analyzing the numerical solutions of unsteady flow fields computed by the Eu lerian approach. We show how these methods can be used to assess the validity of solutions and to extract the nature of the flow fields. The numerical algorithms for the flow solver and the flow visualization are introduced. The incompressible Navier-Stokes equations are solved using the extended MAC method and the compressible Euler equations are solved using the TVD MacCormack method. Most of the flow visualization methods are conventional. For vector fields, however, we introduce a particle tracing algorithm that is suitable for large amounts of numerical data. We present four flow visu alizations using these methods: flow past a circular cyl inder in two dimensions, shock wave propagation over a circular cylinder, flow past a sphere, and flow around an entire automobile.