Schedule Sep 15, 2017
Modeling and visualizing three-dimensional details of wind-turbine wakes
Mingru Li, Mentors Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz and Samaneh Sadri (Mech E)

Data collection is one of the most important and exciting parts of an experiment of a simulation. Usually, the direct output is several number arrays, which may require sophisticated visualization techniques to enable interpretation by scientists and engineers. Scientific visualization techniques are widely applied, such as Matplotlib Class in Python, Matlab, and many other software including Paraview and Blender 3D. Paraview is a well-known data visualization software in many areas like fluid dynamics, thermal dynamics, biology and, etc. Meanwhile, Blender 3D is a 3D modeling software widely used by game designers, animation makers. We combine them, with the help of Python and Matlab, to produce explanatory visualization of a particularly challenging problem, namely the wake behind a wind turbine. Our visualizations enable us to examine in detail the three-dimensional dynamics of the complex vortex patterns generated by the turbine, and suggest possible approaches to improve turbine designs.

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