Thursday, September 10, 2009

Fields generated by flow.


A Von Karman Vortex in the clouds off Rishiri Island, Japan (source wiki)

A vortex street is not necessarily turbulent, the pattern is an alternating separation of flow, which is periodic and unsteady, but not turbulent. A bit like the flow generated by the propellors of the ferry, on the image below, it is the constant movement of an alternating motion.



It is possible to simulate vortex street at the speed of light in "Stardust" on a computer, we only need to keep the Reyonolds number in about the same range. So if we could find the kinematic viscosity of "stardust", we could scale a starting-point-cylinder and simulate it with the speed of light - it is possible to enter any value, so it also could be done at a lower speed (and probably way more easier and less CPU expensive) - when we keep the Re number in the same range (Re = (speed * length)/ kinematic viscosity). Note: this doesn't mean, that there could be additional effects included that would appear at the speed of light.