We use the virtual boiler geometry as a frame of reference for the display of numerical data available from the PHOENICS CFD model. We have provided several options for data visualization that can be used to obtain insight into the numerical combustion velocity and temperature results.
To gain an overall understanding of the velocity field in the boiler we use a static vector field in which the discrete data points are represented by tetrahedral darts. The direction of each dart coincides with the direction of the flow, the length indicates magnitude or speed of the flow, and the color corresponds to the temperature or any other scalar quantity such as chemical species concentration. We often display the vector field in a wire frame geometry as depicted in the figure on the left. In this figure we show the entire vector field colored linearly within a narrow region of interest; that is, brightly colored vectors correspond to the region in which the injector sprays will be most effective, lavendar vectors are too hot and dark purple vectors are too cold. The second figure shows the flow field from a tangentially-fired boiler where color corresponds directly to the temperature field.
To view scalar fields of interest we have implemented a simple isosurface generator for tetrahedral meshes. Pictured above are the isosurfaces that define the narrow range of temperatures for which the pollution control system will be optimal.
To define particular regions of interest for flow field visualization, the user can interactively define a rectangular brick at any orientation such as the one shown in the figure below. The brick is filled with a uniform distribution of data points whose density is determined interactively by the user. The corresponding numerical data is requested from the computational model and can be viewed in a number of different ways.
