Three-Dimensional Flow Fields
Every day, it seems, I understand something new I had failed to grasp before—especially in aerodynamics. For example, take this statement: "Once again, it is necessary to remember that road vehicles and their air flow patterns are highly three-dimensional " (Barnard 15, emphasis added). This always bothered me a little. Of course the flow over cars is 3-dimensional, I thought; how on earth can something be more or less , let alone highly 3D? Isn’t flow just...3D or not 3D? Well, a few weeks ago in an Incompressible Flow lecture I finally understood it. Now you can too. Investigating the veracity of Barnard's claim. I've done this before, and have yet to find him wrong. Flow Fields A field is a region of space where properties vary as a function of position within that space. The flow field around a car is the 3-dimensional space where the seven properties needed to completely characterize a flow (pressure, density, temperature, viscosity, and three compo