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Velocity Streamtubes
Turbine blades are often subjected to extremely high temperatures. Blades are cooled internally with cold air flowing through serpentine channels. To enhance the rate of cooling, roughness elements, or ribs, are placed in the channels to generate turbulence. This image plots instantaneous velocity streamtubes and temperature on channel walls. The intertwined nature of streamtubes is a result of strong mixing in the flow.
[This simulation was created at the National Computational Science Alliance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign using software developed with support from the U.S. National Science Foundation.]
Credit: Danesh Tafti and Randy Heiland, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; courtesy NCSA
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