The Chinese Society of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics

ABSTRACT: A reliable validation based on the optical flow visualization for numerical simula-tions of complex flowfields is addressed in this paper. Several test cases, including two-dimensional, axisymmetric and three-dimensional flowfields, were presented to demonstrate he effectiveness of the validation and gain credibility of numerical solutions of complex flowfields. In the validation, images of these flowfields were constructed from numerical results based on the principle of the optical flow visualization, and compared irectly with experimental interferograms. Because both experimental nd numerical results are of identical physical representation, the agreement between them can be evaluated effectively by examining flow structures as well as checking discrepancies in density. The study shows that the reliable validation can be achieved by using the direct comparison between umerical and experiment results without any loss of accuracy in either of them. KEY WORDS: CFD validation, optical flow visualization, numerical simulation, numerical flow visualizatio