A Numerical Method of Tracing a Vortical Axis along Local Topological Axis Line.

A new numerical method is presented to trace or identify a vortical axis in flow, which is based on Galilean invariant flow topology. We focus on the local flow topology specified by the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the velocity gradient tensor, and extract the axis component from its flow trajectory. Eigen-vortical-axis line is defined from the eigenvector of the real eigenvalue of the velocity gradient tensor where the tensor has the conjugate complex eigenvalues. This numerical method integrates the eigen-vortical-axis line and traces a vortical axis in terms of the invariant flow topology, which enables to investigate the feature of the topology-based vortical axis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]