Vortex
A vortex (pl. vortices) is a spinning, often turbulent, flow of fluid. The motion of the fluid swirling rapidly around a center is called a vortex. The speed and rate of rotation of the fluid are greatest at the center and become smaller with distance from the center.
Vortex Media
Vortices formed by milk when poured into a cup of coffee
A Kármán vortex street is demonstrated in this photo, as winds from the west blow onto clouds that have formed over the mountains in the desert. This phenomenon observed from ground level is extremely rare, as most cloud-related Kármán vortex street activity is viewed from space
The Crow instability of a jet aeroplane's contrail visually demonstrates the vortex created in the atmosphere (gas fluid medium) by the passage of the aircraft.
Rotational vortex
Irrotational vortex
Schematic illustration of particle trajectories in an idealized irrotational stationary vortex (where the linear velocity is constant and the angular velocity is inversely proportional to distance from the axis).*The dashed line represents the axis of the vortex. The small spheres are sample particles, and the thin circles are their streamlines (or pathlines).
vortex in a bottle of water
The visible core of a vortex formed when a C-17 uses high engine power at slow speed on a wet runway.
Related pages
Other websites
- Dust Devil Movie A short movie showing many spinning vortices of varying sizes
- Video of two water vortex rings colliding Archived 2005-12-09 at the Wayback Machine (MPEG)
- BubbleRings.com Web site on "bubble rings", which are underwater rings made of air formed from vortices. The site has some information on how these rings work.
- Chapter 3 Rotational Flows: Circulation and Turbulence Archived 2006-09-05 at the Wayback Machine
- Video of Vortex Formation and Annihilation in a Superconductor (By Joel Thorarinson Archived 2008-10-08 at the Wayback Machine)
