In this webinar we invite entrants from the 2022 ARCHER2 Image and Video Competition to talk about their work, and the science behind their stunning images and videos.

This online session is open to all. It will use the Blackboard Collaborate platform.

Aleksandra Monka

University of Birmingham, Department of Civil Engineering

Expiratory particle dispersion by turbulent exhalation jet during speaking

Expiratory particle dispersion by turbulent exhalation jet during speaking

The image reveals the extent of expiratory particle dispersion by the turbulent exhalation jet during speaking, with this high-resolution simulation run on the ARCHER2 system. A 3D overview figure of the whole room is shown in the bottom right-hand corner for spatial context. The particle’s ability to stay airborne is affected by its diameter: the largest particles (red and yellow) fall out close to the speaking person, while the smaller ones (blue) are entrained into the exhalation jet and transported throughout the room. The aim of the research is to develop a numerical tool to predict accurately the spread of airborne pathogens carried by very small expiratory particles in different indoor environments. The novelty of this work lies in the ability to determine and quantify the spatiotemporal distribution of airborne pathogens and the infection risk in different indoor scenarios, considering the turbulent mixing of particles on their spread.

Domantas Dilys

University of Leeds, School of Earth and Enviroment

Ray-traced Cloud Development Simulation Video

Ray-traced Cloud Development Simulation Video

In the animation, an idealised cloud is shown, which is produced by a rising warm and moist air mass. There are seven timesteps, showing cloud development over time. Simulation was produced using a revolutionary parcel-based cloud model developed by the University of St Andrews, the University of Leeds and EPCC. The model, PMPIC, was parallelised in an eCSE project (eCSE12-10), and run on ARCHER2. During 2022 Summer Visualisation Internship, the video was produced on the GPU-enabled Faculty of Engineering Linux system at the University of Leeds. Volume rendering capabilities of ParaView, in particular, Intel® OSPRay path-tracer was used for realistic lighting and self-shadowing. The cover image has slightly increased contrast by post-processing, but the video remains the original output of ParaView.

Dr Nikolaos Bempedelis

Imperial College London, Department of Aeronautics

Flow within and around a large wind farm

Flow within and around a large wind farm

Modern large-scale wind farms consist of multiple turbines clustered together in wind-rich sites. Turbine clustering suffers some drawbacks, as downstream turbines operate within the wake of upstream ones, resulting in the reduction of their power output due to wind speed deceleration and the increase of fatigue loads due to increased wind fluctuations. High-fidelity turbulence-resolving simulations allow us to study the dynamics of the interacting turbine wakes, providing insight into complex flow phenomena such as wake meandering, tip and hub vortex breakdown, and the interaction of the wind farm with the atmospheric boundary layer. The data was generated with the open-source flow solver Xcompact3D on ARCHER2.

Video