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Methods of automating the analysis and display of vector field topology in general and flow topology in particular are discussed. Two-dimensional vector field topology is reviewed as the basis for the examination of topology in three-dimensional separated flows. The use of tangent surfaces and clipping in visualizing vector field topology in fluid flows is addressed.
A prototype of an advanced robotic vision system both (1) measures its own motion with respect to a stationary background and (2) detects other moving objects and estimates their motions, all by use of visual cues. Like some prior robotic and other optoelectronic vision systems, this system is based partly on concepts of optical flow and visual odometry. Whereas prior optoelectronic visual-odometry systems have been limited to frame rates of no more than 1 Hz, a visual-odometry subsystem that is part of this system operates at a frame rate of 60 to 200 Hz, given optical-flow estimates. The overall system operates at an effective frame rate of 12 Hz. Moreover, unlike prior machine-vision systems for detecting motions of external objects, this system need not remain stationary: it can detect such motions while it is moving (even vibrating). The system includes a stereoscopic pair of cameras mounted on a moving robot. The outputs of the cameras are digitized, then processed to extract positions and velocities. The initial image-data-processing functions of this system are the same as those of some prior systems: Stereoscopy is used to compute three-dimensional (3D) positions for all pixels in the camera images. For each pixel of each image, optical flow between successive image frames is used to compute the two-dimensional (2D) apparent relative translational motion of the point transverse to the line of sight of the camera. The challenge in designing this system was to provide for utilization of the 3D information from stereoscopy in conjunction with the 2D information from optical flow to distinguish between motion of the camera pair and motions of external objects, compute the motion of the camera pair in all six degrees of translational and rotational freedom, and robustly estimate the motions of external objects, all in real time. To meet this challenge, the system is designed to perform the following image-data-processing functions: The visual-odometry subsystem (the subsystem that estimates the motion of the camera pair relative to the stationary background) utilizes the 3D information from stereoscopy and the 2D information from optical flow. It computes the relationship between the 3D and 2D motions and uses a least-mean-squares technique to estimate motion parameters. The least-mean-squares technique is suitable for real-time implementation when the number of external-moving-object pixels is smaller than the number of stationary-background pixels.
Buoyancy-induced disturbances in an electrophoresis-type chamber were investigated. Five tracer streams (latex) were used to visualize the flows while a nine-thermistor array sensed the temperature field. The internal heating to the chamber was provided by a 400 Hz electrical field. Cooling to the chamber was provided on the front and back faces and, in addition, on both chamber side walls. Disturbances to the symmetric base flow in the chamber occurred in the broad plane of the chamber and resulted from the formation of lateral and axial temperature gradients. The effect of these gradients was to retard or increase local flow velocities at different positions in the chamber cross section, which resulted in lateral secondary flows being induced in the broad plane of the chamber. As the adverse temperature gradients increased in magnitude, the critical Rayleigh number was approached and reverse (separated) flow became apparent, which, subsequently, led to the onset of time variant secondary flows.
Development in large-scale geotechnical engineering simulation places tremendous demand for efficient visualization of such simulation data. This study presents a lightweight software tool, i.e. Geotechnical Interactive Visualization (GIV), as a solution to this challenge, which achieves efficient interactive visualization of large-scale simulations data in geotechnical engineering. Visualization data flow and algorithms specifically optimized for common geotechnical engineering applications are implemented in GIV. GIV can visualize geotechnical structure models with time-varying attributes attached to mesh with fixed topology, and also models with time-varying mesh topologies but no attributes attached, the two most common visualization tasks in geotechnical engineering. Furthermore, challenges for large-scale simulation data visualization, including parallel simulation data redundancy, massive data size, dynamic user interaction, and portability are overcome via specifically designed algorithms for simulation data preprocessing and optimized visualization modules using the powerful 3D rendering and interactive game engine Unity3D. Comparison of GIV with several widely used visualization tools for the visualization of large-scale idealized datasets and realistic geotechnical simulations highlights the visualization efficiency, smooth interactivity, and lightweight features of GIV.
In this paper, a compact high-resolution gamma-ray Computed Tomography (CompaCT) measurement system for multiphase flow studies and tomographic imaging of technical objects is presented. Its compact and robust design makes it particularly suitable for studies on industrial facilities and outdoor applications. Special care has been given to thermal ruggedness, shock resistance, and radiation protection. Main components of the system are a collimated {sup 137}Cs isotopic source, a thermally stabilised modular high-resolution gamma-ray detector arc with 112 scintillation detector elements, and a transportable rotary unit. The CompaCT allows full CT scans of objects with a diameter of up to 130 mm and can be operated with any tilting angle from 0 Degree-Sign (horizontal) to 90 Degree-Sign (vertical).
In nuclear sodium fast reactors, bundles of rods are tightly packed into a triangular lattice, enclosed in a hexagonal duct, and each pin is spirally wrapped with a thin wire. Flow blockages can potentially impact the local flow characteristics and heat transfer mechanisms in the bundle due to its small subchannel size. The effects of the blockage on the flow structures and heat transfer mechanisms are important aspects that require an accurate investigation. In this study, the flow-field characteristics in the vicinity of a blockage located in the exterior subchannel of rod bundles with helically wrapped wires were experimentally investigated. The velocity fields in the exterior subchannel were acquired by applying matched-index-of-refraction and time-resolved particle image velocimetry (TR-PIV) techniques for Reynolds numbers of Re 1 = 4000 and Re 2 = 17 000, i.e., equivalent to Rew 1 = 19 600 and Rew 2 = 83 200, respectively, based on the blockage width. The results from the TR-PIV measurements revealed an arch-shaped vortex with a large flow recirculation and a pair of counter-rotating vortices in the wake region downstream of the blockage, which is commonly observed in the wake flow of bluff bodies. The relative lateral distance and angle between the two vortices decreased when the Reynolds numbers increased. Profiles of maximum turbulence intensity along the shear layers illustrated the transition process including the growth, peak, and decay along the flow direction. From the spectral analysis of the turbulent velocities extracted at points along the shear layer, the Strouhal numbers ( St ) representing the vortex shedding frequency were found to be St = 0.25 and St = 0.56 for the left and right shear layers, respectively. Characteristics of shear layers generated by the blockage in the exterior subchannel were investigated via the two-point cross correlation of fluctuating velocities. The patiotemporal cross correlations of turbulent velocities, computed at points in the region where the left shear layer exhibited rolling effects and vortex breakdowns, were considerably wider and longer. The convection velocity U c was estimated to be ~0.82 U m to 0.93 U m . Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) analysis was applied to the instantaneous velocity fields to extract the statistically dominant flow structures. It was found that POD modes 2–3 and 4–5 formed the pair modes when the corresponding POD temporal coefficients depicted sinusoidal shapes and exhibited nearly circular orbits in the phase space. Spectral analysis of the POD temporal coefficients confirmed the vortex shedding frequencies detected in the analysis of turbulent velocities.
An experimental investigation has been conducted to determine the effect of massive wall injection on the flow characteristics in a slotted nozzle. Some of the experiments were performed on a water table with a slotted-nozzle test section. This has 45 deg and 15 deg half angles of convergence and divergence, respectively, throat radius of 2.5 inches, and throat width of 3 inches. The hydraulic analogy was employed to qualitatively extend the results to a compressible gas flow through the nozzle. Experimental results from the water table include contours of constant Froude and Mach number with and without injection. Photographic results are also presented for the injection through slots of CO2 and Freon-12 into a main-stream air flow in a convergent-divergent nozzle in a wind tunnel. Schlieren photographs were used to visualize the flow, and qualititative agreement between the results from the gas tunnel and water table is good.
The Line Integral Convolution (LIC) method, which blurs white noise textures along a vector field, is an effective way to visualize overall flow patterns in a 2D domain. The method produces a flow texture image based on the input velocity field defined in the domain. Because of the nature of the algorithm, the texture image tends to be blurry. This sometimes makes it difficult to identify boundaries where flow separation and reattachments occur. We present techniques to enhance LIC texture images and use colored texture images to highlight flow separation and reattachment boundaries. Our techniques have been applied to several flow fields defined in 3D curvilinear multi-block grids and scientists have found the results to be very useful.
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Visualization of flow structures within post-detonation fireballs has been performed for benchmark validation of numerical simulations. Custom pressed PETN explosives with a 12-mm diameter hemispherical form factor were used to produce a spherically symmetric post-detonation flow with low soot yield. Hydroxyl-radical planar laser induce fluorescence (OH-PLIF) was employed to visualize the structure ranging from approximately 10 μs to 35 μs after shock breakout from the explosive pellet. Fireball simulations were performed using the HyBurn Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) package. Experimental OH-PLIF results were compared to synthetic OH-PLIF from post-processing of CFD simulations. From the comparison of experimental and synthetic OH-PLIF images, CFD is shown to replicate much of the flow structure observed in the experiments, revealing potential differences in turbulent length scales and OH kinetics. Furthermore, results provide significant advancement in experimental resolution of these harsh turbulent combustion environments and validate physical models thereof.
The purpose is to describe the tools and techniques in use at the NASA Ames Research Center for performing visualization of computational aerodynamics, for example visualization of flow fields from computer simulations of fluid dynamics about vehicles such as the Space Shuttle. The hardware used for visualization is a high-performance graphics workstation connected to a super computer with a high speed channel. At present, the workstation is a Silicon Graphics IRIS 3130, the supercomputer is a CRAY2, and the high speed channel is a hyperchannel. The three techniques used for visualization are post-processing, tracking, and steering. Post-processing analysis is done after the simulation. Tracking analysis is done during a simulation but is not interactive, whereas steering analysis involves modifying the simulation interactively during the simulation. Using post-processing methods, a flow simulation is executed on a supercomputer and, after the simulation is complete, the results of the simulation are processed for viewing. The software in use and under development at NASA Ames Research Center for performing these types of tasks in computational aerodynamics is described. Workstation performance issues, benchmarking, and high-performance networks for this purpose are also discussed as well as descriptions of other hardware for digital video and film recording.
The holographic recording of the time history of a flow feature in three dimensions is discussed. The use of diffuse illumination holographic interferometry or the three dimensional visualization of flow features such as shock waves and turbulent eddies is described. The double-exposure and time-average methods are compared using the characteristic function and the results from a flow simulator. A time history requires a large hologram recording rate. Results of holographic cinematography of the shock waves in a flutter cascade are presented as an example. Future directions of this effort, including the availability and development of suitable lasers, are discussed.
Most hardware behavioral languages just use texts to describe the behavior of the desired hardware design. This is inconvenient for VLSI designers who enjoy using the schematic approach. The proposed visual hardware behavioral language has the ability to graphically express design information using visual parallel models (blocks), visual sequential models (processes) and visual data flow graphs (which consist of primitive operational icons, control icons, and Data and Synchro links). Thus, the proposed visual hardware behavioral language can not only specify hardware concurrent and sequential functionality, but can also visually expose parallelism, sequentiality, and disjointness (mutually exclusive operations) for the hardware designers. That would make the hardware designers capture the design ideas easily and explicitly using this visual hardware behavioral language.
Soft errors have become one of the major concerns for the error resilience of the HPC applications as those errors may cause HPC applications to generate serious outcomes such as silent data corruptions (SDCs). Protecting the applications from soft errors is an essential while challenging task. Among different approaches, obtaining a profound understanding of the resilience proneness of an application is very important to devise efficient error detection and recovery strategies. Given the scale of the HPC applications both in the code size and execution time, there are often cases that the error propagation analysis on such applications would produce a massive volume of unstructured data, which requires a significant amount of efforts, to process and to obtain indicating actions towards error protection. In this paper, we present a control-flow based visual analysis framework to help the users conduct error propagation analysis and identify the critical sections of a program that may have a higher likelihood of leading to erroneous outcomes when affected by the control flow related errors. We also design and implement the scalable visualization framework - ResilienceVis that efficiently and effectively visualizes the affected program states under errors and the propagation traces for an application in a user-friendly manner, and eventually, we combine the analysis and visualization to exhibit the error-proneness of the different sections of applications.
The holographic recording of the time history of a flow feature in three dimensions is discussed. The use of diffuse illumination holographic interferometry or the three-dimensional visualization of flow features such as shock waves and turbulent eddies is described. The double-exposure and time-average methods are compared using the characteristic function and the results from a flow simulator. A time history requires a large hologram recording rate. Results of holographic cinematography of the shock waves in a flutter cascade are presented as an example. Future directions of this effort, including the availability and development of suitable lasers, are discussed. Previously announced in STAR as N84-21849
A set of programs for unstructured mesh construction, fluid flow calculation and flow field visualization in two and three dimensions is described. The grid generators are based on the advancing front concept. The flow solvers use the finite element methods with Flux Corrected Transport techniques to solve several sets of equations including the Euler and Burger's equations. Several examples show the flexibility and accuracy of the methods.
This article is part of a series of studies culminating from the multi-objective Flow Boiling and Condensation Experiment (FBCE) onboard the International Space Station, which utilized the Flow Boiling Module (FBM) for experiments between February and July 2022. This study investigates microgravity flow boiling of n-Perfluorohexane with liquid-vapor mixture (two-phase) inlet conditions to the FBM with either one or two opposite walls heated. The FBM’s channel has a rectangular cross-sectional area of 5.0 × 2.5 mm 2 and a heated length of 114.6 mm. Key parameters of interest include mass velocity (180 – 2400 kg/m 2 s), inlet quality (-0.01 – 0.87), inlet pressure (120 – 200 kPa), and heat flux (1.8 W/cm 2 to critical heat flux), and a large database is amassed. The flow is visualized via a high-speed video camera and photographs are recorded at each heating increment to assess the periodic flow patterns within the channel and the near-wall interfacial behavior. Flow patterns are complex and mainly characterized by high- and low-density fronts alternately traversing the channel to yield high- and low-density-dominant periods of boiling. At all operating conditions, high-density fronts are faster during high-density-dominant periods. At low inlet qualities, the flow is annular near the channel inlet with a central vapor core surrounded by an annular liquid layer. Each high-density front having a high liquid fraction leaves a thin liquid layer sheared onto the heated walls. Boiling occurs within the liquid layer and a vapor layer is formed next to the heated wall. Inlet quality and mass velocity most dictate the overall flow patterns followed by heating configuration, and to a much lesser extent, heat flux and inlet pressure. Heat transfer characteristics are assessed via averaged boiling curves, streamwise profiles of wall temperature and heat transfer coefficient, and parametric curves of local and averaged heat transfer coefficients. Inlet pressure has an insignificant effect on heat transfer. At similar operating conditions, both the heating configurations yield similar trends and values of heat transfer coefficient and critical heat flux (CHF, slightly higher for single-sided) even though double-sided heating adds twice the heat to the fluid and doubly raises local quality. The heat fluxes required for both onset of nucleate boiling degradation and CHF are larger at high mass velocities and low inlet qualities. For a fixed inlet quality, high mass velocities yield higher average heat transfer coefficients at both lower and higher heat fluxes, while the nucleate boiling regime at intermediate heat fluxes is unaffected. For a fixed mass velocity, higher inlet qualities yield higher and lower average heat transfer coefficients at lower and higher heat fluxes, respectively.
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