(Click on the image for a larger (900 x 550) version)

Produced by ANL's Computing and Communications Infrastructure Futures Laboratory

Source URL: http://www-fp.mcs.anl.gov/fl/images/index.htm

These surfaces illustrate the vortex system generated by a flat-plate boundary layer flow interacting with a hemispherical roughness element. A steady horseshoe vortex forms at the base of the hemisphere (foreground), while a chain of interlacing hairpin vortices continuously evolves in the hemisphere wake (background). The colors represent pressure distributions within the vortex system.
Data courtesy Paul Fischer (ANL) and Henry Tufo (ANL).

(Click here for a 500 x 390 closeup, or here for a 1000 x 780 closeup, of a part of the above image.)