Experimentalists often need a sense for the overall flow before they can decide where to measure in greater detail. For such situations, flow visualization techniques are a powerful tool since Keep reading
Tag: oil flow visualization
Flow on Commercial Wings
Even in an era of supercomputers, there is a place for quick and dirty methods of flow visualization. Here we see a model of a swept wing like those seen on Keep reading
Soap Film Evolution
The beautiful colors of a soap film reflect its variations in thickness. As a film drains and evaporates, it turns to shades of gray and black as it gets thinner. Keep reading
Flow in a Turbine
Fluid flows are complex, complicated, and ever-changing. Researchers use many techniques to visualize parts of a flow, which can help make what’s happening clearer. One technique, shown above, uses oil Keep reading
The Challenges of Micro Air Vehicles
Interest in micro-aerial vehicles (MAVs) has proliferated in the last decade. But making these aircraft fly is more complicated than simply shrinking airplane designs. At smaller sizes and lower speeds, Keep reading
Oil Flow Viz
Fluorescent oil sprayed onto a model in the NASA Langley 14 by 22-Foot Subsonic Wind Tunnel glows under ultraviolet light. Airflow over the model pulls the initially even coat of Keep reading
Streamlines in Oil
Bernoulli’s principle describes the relationship between pressure and velocity in a fluid: in short, an increase in velocity is accompanied by a drop in pressure and vice versa. This photo Keep reading
Reader Question: Does Flow Viz Alter Flow?
Reader gorbax asks: I’ve been wondering for a while, actually, how do we know when the method of flow visualization doesn’t actually alter the flow of a fluid itself? This Keep reading
Effects of Hills on Flow
Hills and other topology can have interesting and complex effects on a flowfield. With the FAITH experiment, NASA has been investigating an axisymmetric model hill using a combination of experimental Keep reading
Supersonic Oil Flow Viz
This image shows oil-flow visualization of a cylindrical roughness element on a flat plate in supersonic flow. The flow direction is from left to right. In this technique, a thin layer Keep reading