ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the basic concept of color coding scalar variables associated with a grid for computer-generated imagery and algorithms that have been used at the NASA Langley Research Center for creating images of flow field variables. It also discusses the use of “state-of the-art” workstations for flow-field visualization and of hard-copy devices. During the past 20 years an area of research called computational fluid dynamics has emerged along with the development of high-speed digital computers. This area of research is the simulation of fluid motion through the numerical solution of governing partial differential equations and associated boundary conditions. Computational fluid dynamics is the study of fluid flow using numerical methods to solve differential equations that are postulated from the conservation of the mass, momentum, and energy of a fluid in motion. For a viscous-compressible fluid flow, the Navier–Stokes equations are the model differential equations of motion.
