Visualization of the Temporal Flowfield

Over a Pitching Body of Revolution

Matthew D. Zeiger

Ideally, fluid flow about an axisymmetric body will be symmetric. However, in the case of the tangent-ogive cylinder (a generic forebody), this assumption does not hold. At high angles of attack the resulting asymmetry may be enough to overcome the conventional methods of control, causing the body to rotate uncontrollably about the velocity vector. By visualizing the flow about the pitching body, it is hoped that the flow will be better understood, a vital factor leading to the control of said flow.

The data set consists of three-dimensional velocity in three two-dimensional planes for one hundred times during the motion of the model. In addition, the three-dimensional voticity field will be calculated from the velocity field. Contours of the in-plane sectional streamlines and the axial velocity may be displayed simultaneously. In addition, animation will be used to view the entire sequence of the motion.

Objectives
- Visualization of the flowfield to facilitate understanding:
  - Small multiples of data in 2-D planes
  - Animation of entire plane of 3-D data
- Creation of a multimedia module to enable presentation to a general audience
Analysis and Display Routine:
- Reduction of data with fortran routines
- Initial examination of data with X-Dataslice
- Continued examination and display with AVS of Spyglass' Dicer
- Animations through navigable quicktime movies
- Authorware or Director used to create multimedia module

mzeiger@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu