Hello,
I wrote a 3D Source-Doublet Panel Method (based on Katz & Plotkin) for a blended wing UAV. For a given geometry I can generate velocity vectors at the panel midpoints. An example is added below (the velocity vectors are shown in red for a relatively coarse mesh):
I would like to plot on-body streamlines based on the coordinates of the panel midpoints (x,y,z) and the velocity vectors (vx,vy,vz). For clarity, I want to plot something like this (found here): I've been able to plot streamlines in free air in the past, by creating a meshgrid and using stream3. I've looked around the forums but I haven't found any way to create streamlines that are constrained to lie on a surface of a wing. I found a link where streamlines are plotted on a half-sphere (here) but I have some doubts about this method being applicable to my problem: The stagnation point (where the streamlines originate) are not fixed and I'm not sure if the projection of streamline on a plane to the wing surface is accurate in this instance. In any case, the wing surface would have to be split up into an upper and lower part, which adds complexity. The "brute force" approach would be to choose an initial point, interpolate the velocity at that point, move along the direction of the velocity vector with a small timestep and project that point onto the surface. Repeat until the end of the wing is reached. But this seems overly complicated, knowing the capabilities of the streamline functions in Matlab.
Does anyone have a suggestion on how to tackle this problem? Would be greatly appreciated.
Kind regards,
Mathias
