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Tecplot 2016 Plot-Contest Winners Announced


And the Winners Are . . .

Many people like a little friendly competition, as evidenced by the millions of March Madness brackets filled-out at the start of the NCAA’s post-season basketball tournament each year. Those of us here at Tecplot are no different. As a result, we launched our 2016 Plot Contest in January, hoping to receive some stunning images generated by Tecplot software. Based on the submissions we received, we’re happy to report the quality and creativity of our customers’ work exceeded our expectations.

The rules of the contest were quite simple: any image or plot generated using our software — whether it be Tecplot RS, Tecplot 360, Tecplot Focus or Tecplot Chorus — was eligible. March 31, 2016 was the submission deadline.

The images were judged on technical excellence, overall impact, artistic merit and subject-matter relevance. A clear and concise caption was mandatory. And finally, the hard-to-define, but we’ll-know-it-when-we-see-it “wow factor” must have jumped off the computer screen.
A panel of Tecplot judges voted and the winners are:

Grand Prize Winner: 3D kinematics and unsteady wake structure of a fast swimming killer whale. Submitted by Yan Ren, University of Virginia

Orca full-body flow

We are understanding the physics of complex flows of flying and swimming in nature by combining state-of-the-art computational methods, experimental tools, and theoretical fluid dynamics research. Tecplot 360 helped us in visualizing and analyzing complicated 3D unsteady flows of natural animals.

Runner up: Borehole lithology, well screens and potentiometric surface (blue) in an industrial site. Submitted by Assaf Wunsch, Leppert Associates.

Borehole lithology

Tecplot allows us to get a 3D perspective of geology underlying industrial sites. Visualization of screen placements in wells that are used for groundwater remediation allows us to check whether wells were installed at the correct geologic intervals. Visualization of geology and of groundwater potentiometric surface data assist in development of hydrologic conceptual models.

Runner up: Free-surface and the underwater vorticity colored by velocity of tidal turbine in ocean waves. Submitted by Jinhui Yan, University of California at San Diego.

Free-surface and underwater vorticity

We work on fluid-structure interaction and computational fluid dynamics. Tecplot 360 always help us visualize the solutions, understand the results and make our presentation colorful.

Runner up: Wake development aft a vertical axis turbine computed using a discontinuous Galerkin Flow solver. Submitted by Esteban Ferrer, ETSIAE-UPM (School of Aeronautics).

Wake developement aft a vertical axis turbine

Fluid dynamics and numerical methods, h/p Spectral and Discontinuous Galerkin high order methods, aerodynamics, bluff body flows, turbulence modelling, flow stability, aeronautics and renewable energies are my main interests. Tecplot helps me to post-process the results issued form my high order and very accurate solvers.

 
For his effort, Grand Prize winner Yan Ren will receive a Quadcopter Drone for GoPro valued at $600! Each of our runners-up will receive a $100 Amazon gift card.

The winning images, and even those that didn’t win, might garner some publicity for their creator. As stated in the contest rules, any of the submissions could end up on next year’s Tecplot t-shirt or featured prominently on our Web site, in one of our newsletters, or on our social media platforms.

Make sure you check the Plot Gallery to see all the amazing entries, and thanks to everyone who participated in Tecplot’s 2016 Plot Contest!