Study on Generation of Tornado-like Flow Field and Visualization by Funnel Clouds

Generation of Tornado-like Flow by the Horizontal Shear

Abstract

The generation of tornado-like flow with horizontal shear was carried out by a numerical fluid analysis.Effects of the inlet outlet height, upward flow opening width, the size of the analysis area, the strengths of the shear, and upward flow on the flow field were investigated.As results of this study to generate of realistic tornado-like flow varying spatially and temporally.Generated tornado-like flows had strongly two-dimensional behaviors and the distribution of tangential wind speed fit to the thoreticalformula for two-dimensional viscous vortex.More over, it was found that the strength of the shear controled circulation and maximum tangential wind speed of tornado-like flow.