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This video is a short introduction to interrogating transient data and how to animate it. We will go over time strands, streamtraces, and animating transient data.
This video introduces transient data using wind turbine blade data.
Load the wind turbine blade data into Tecplot 360. These are Fluent case and data files that represent the geometry and data separately for each time step. Ensure that the Fluent Data Loader is selected in the drop down menu, highlight all of the .cas and .dat files, and click Open.
When the data is loaded, you see the full 2-D fluid domain. Turn on Mesh in the Plot Sidebar to see it better. Next, zoom into the middle of the fluid domain to see that a cross section has been made on a three bladed-vertical axis wind turbine.
To understand the image, go into Data Set Info. In this dialog, there are over 1,000 zones. Each zone represents a region of the simulation at a particular time step. These zones are then given a Time Strand and Solution Time which can be seen to the bottom left of the dialog. Time strands link a particular set of zones representing the same region throughout time.
Next, open the Zone Style dialog. You can see that there are only nine field maps, which are a representation of a group of zones. These field maps are keyed off of the time strand of each zone. The zone numbers displayed are the zones which are currently being shown in the plot at this time step. The concept of field maps is useful as it means that setting style on one zone will also set the style for the same region of the data set throughout time.
Now that you understand the data, you can look at visualizing it. First, turn off the mesh layer and turn on contour using the right-click context menu. Next, seed some streamtraces by toggling them on in the Plot sidebar and then selecting the Streamtraces button to the left of Streamtrace Details. When you rake the streamtraces, each of the rakes are seeding ten streamtraces, which show the direction of the velocity field. Animate your plot by pressing the blue play button in the Plot sidebar. Notice how the streamtraces and contour are changing as time goes on. These show how the fluid reacts to the movement of the blades.
Thanks for watching!