Flow Net Grid

The Flow Net Grid shows air or water streaming past a round obstacle, drawn the way engineers sketch it: a mesh of streamlines, the paths the fluid follows, crossed at right angles by lines of equal pressure. Around the obstacle the mesh bends and squeezes, and the fast-moving flow lights up.

How it works

The flow is the textbook ideal flow around a cylinder. Its two families of lines always meet at right angles, so the whole floor stays a net of small, almost square cells however hard the flow bends. Adding circulation, a swirl around the cylinder, pushes the flow to one side: that imbalance is what produces lift on a wing or a spinning ball. Brightness follows speed, so the points where the flow stops dead at the front and back of the cylinder stay dark while its shoulders, where the flow runs fastest, glow.

Settings

• Obstacle Radius is the size of the cylinder, in cells.
• Circulation sets the swirl and the lift; 0 gives a symmetric flow.
• Flow Angle turns the direction the fluid comes from.
• Line Mode Flow sends light along the streamlines.
• Cell Size sets the spacing of the net.

Use it for

Aerodynamics, automotive and engineering pages, fluid and climate science, and clean technical floors. The Conformal Grid offers more flows in the same style, with dye carried by the current.