Visualizing Lagrangian Heat Transport Paths and Density Structures in Unsteady Heat Transfer

Authors

Besm Osman (Eindhoven University of Technology), Andrei Jalba (Eindhoven University of Technology), Michel Speetjens (Eindhoven University of Technology), Anna Vilanova (Eindhoven University of Technology)

Presentation

Session

Big Data, Bigger Physics

Time

Friday, Nov 13, 08:09 – 08:18 (US/Eastern) · session 08:00 – 09:30

Location

Hall America south

Keywords

Scientific visualization, Flow visualization, Lagrangian methods, Coherent structures.

Abstract

Convective heat transfer is traditionally visualized from a Eulerian perspective using scalar temperature fields, offering limited insight into the underlying transport mechanisms. A Lagrangian view, analogous to mass transport along fluid paths, can reveal coherent structures and transport routes invisible from a Eulerian view of temperature. However, heat transport is aperiodic and non-conservative, hampering the application of fluid mixing and transport visualization techniques, developed primarily for time-periodic, conservative transport. We present a particle-based visualization technique that addresses these challenges by advecting massless particles along a time-reparameterized spacetime formulation of thermal transport, accumulating path contributions to reveal coherent transport routes and finite-time attracting and repelling structures that conventional methods cannot show.

For Practitioners

CFD and thermal simulation engineers. The method provides visual insight into coherent structures in convective heat transfer, revealing transport routes and density patterns that conventional temperature-field visualizations cannot show.