A description of eddying motions and flow patterns using critical-point concepts
Abstract
An effort is made to demonstrate the usefulness of critical-point concepts in the understanding of flow patterns. Critical points are the salient features of a flow pattern; given a distribution of such points and their type, much of the remaining flow field and its geometry and topology can be deduced, since there is only a limited number of ways that the streamlines can be joined. Although a field may be unsteady, the instantaneous streamline patterns furnish an idea of the transport properties of an array of eddies in jets and wakes or in complicated three-dimensional separation patterns. In addition, knowledge of a flow field in one plane can often give clues as to the shape of possible flows in other planes.
- Publication:
-
Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics
- Pub Date:
- 1987
- DOI:
- Bibcode:
- 1987AnRFM..19..125P
- Keywords:
-
- Critical Point;
- Flow Distribution;
- Flow Geometry;
- Flow Stability;
- Three Dimensional Flow;
- Vortex Sheets;
- Computational Fluid Dynamics;
- Flow Visualization;
- High Reynolds Number;
- Jet Flow;
- Saddle Points;
- Two Dimensional Flow;
- Fluid Mechanics and Heat Transfer