Flow Illustrator - a simple windtunnel simulator

[cfg83]

lilgreenbrick -

Originally Posted by lilgreenbrick

I noticed on the front page that it was being hosted by the school he used to teach at. I don't know whether EM could handle the extra bandwidth, but we're probably the ones that play most with it. I'm just thinking out loud, but would he be willing to have it hosted and help with the migration?

Hmmmmm, I don't know if it was always that way or he has changed venues (probably not looking closely enough at his web page).

It wouldn't hurt for us to ask him. It would be neat if he was willing to give us the code. We would need to give him full credit. But, that code may not totally belong to him. It might belong to the school.

An "Ecomodder member only" use of the flow illustrator might be ok. We could make it so that it rejects bitmaps over XY size that aren't black and white. Whatever is bogging it down right now could probably be fixed with some TLC. I am guessing that we could at least make it fail gracefully, i.e. so that the next submission will work.

CarloSW2

[Sean T.]

Yeah I've been trying to use it today and can't get anything to happen

[cfg83]

Sean T. -

Originally Posted by Sean T.

Yeah I've been trying to use it today and can't get anything to happen

I sent a PM via ecomodder, but no answer. Soooooo, I will attempt to send a direct e-mail to the creator.

CarloSW2

[Sean T.]

You're awesome

Hope you can get a reply.

[ChazInMT]

I have made 16 videos over the past few days testing my ideas on building an Aero Cap for my GMC Sierra. It works great. It says there is a 158 Min wait, but it is not true, somewhere the developer said there was a bug in the system and this was not reliable. I found there was no wait. You do need to be patient with this since it takes a bit of time to upload your image.

I found that setting the dt at .03 was very helpful in achieving quick results. I followed the program creators advise, http://ecomodder.com/forum/47549-post129.html, and set the Re at 800 and 3000. To save time I set the time to 8 Seconds. This was more than enough to get a good idea on the steady state air flow. It seems that with dt at .01, it takes like 8 seconds just for the flow to settle down, so a 10 second video only has 2 seconds of steady state flow images.

Anyway, I used it to compare different tweaks on the rear of the intended Aero Cap and it worked well. I'll try tonight to get a few of the movies in here so you can see them.

I'm really not sure how to post the videos so any advice from anyone would be helpful.

[ac7ss]

First Gen Honda Insight.
2500000
0.01
40

http://www.youtube.com/v/dr513XxYmvA

[HaiRuiDe]

This is a great software! This kinda thing woulda cost you an arm and a leg 20 years ago! Any budy have anyluck doing actual windtunnel simulation in a garage or the like wih fans and smoke? Just wonderin...

[RobertSmalls]

Originally Posted by ac7ss

First Gen Honda Insight.
2500000
0.01
40

http://www.youtube.com/v/dr513XxYmvA

Though you posted it two months ago, I just watched it. Flow across an Insight doesn't look like that. Tuft testing shows it remains pretty well attached to the end of the hatch.

Since Flow Illustrator can erroneously predict flow separation, I would recommend against using it to guide your design.

[ChazInMT]

Yeah, it doesn't help too much either when people disregard the creator of the programs advice and crank in a 2,500,000 number for Re when he recommends something like 100 to 10,000 for this value.

Also, in regards to a homemade wind tunnel, they tend to not be very good tools because the airflows around small objects shaped the same as bigger ones are not equal, therefore it is not a very useful predictor of real world airflow as I have come to understand. It has to do with this Re number we been talking about. Don't ask me to explain it, I only have an inkling of an idea of what it means.

[talldudenumber5]

here are some pictures of my car i can not figure out how to get the flow illustrator thing to work if somebody want with the pictures i did the hard part of the drawing.

thanks