[General] Plot overline normal to surface in paraview/paraFoam

Jack001 · October 30, 2015, 08:44

Hi all,

I am trying to extract the boundary layer profile of an airfoil at a particular location. I figured this could be done using the plot over line filter in paraview. I can manually move the line so that it is roughly normal at a particular point on my airfoil, but I am wondering if there is an exact way of doing this, and also to specify the position relative to the chord length at which the normal is expanded.

Many thanks in advance!

AeroJ · November 2, 2015, 07:15

Hi Jack,

Are you reading in a 3D mesh and then taking a slice to get your airfoil or is it a 2D mesh?

If it's a 3D mesh you can use the following sequence of filters: Extract Block > Extract Surface > Generate Surface Normals. When you open a spreadsheet view in a new window (with the GenerateSurfaceNormals highlighted in the pipeline), you should see a column header called 'Normals' with the values of your normal vector for each point. You can then use the normal vector to determine the second point of your plot over line filter.

Hope that helps...

October 30, 2015, 08:44	Plot overline normal to surface in paraview/paraFoam	#1
Jack001 Member Jack Join Date: May 2015 Posts: 98 Rep Power: 11	Hi all, I am trying to extract the boundary layer profile of an airfoil at a particular location. I figured this could be done using the plot over line filter in paraview. I can manually move the line so that it is roughly normal at a particular point on my airfoil, but I am wondering if there is an exact way of doing this, and also to specify the position relative to the chord length at which the normal is expanded. Many thanks in advance!

November 2, 2015, 07:15		#2
AeroJ New Member Join Date: Oct 2015 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 11	Hi Jack, Are you reading in a 3D mesh and then taking a slice to get your airfoil or is it a 2D mesh? If it's a 3D mesh you can use the following sequence of filters: Extract Block > Extract Surface > Generate Surface Normals. When you open a spreadsheet view in a new window (with the GenerateSurfaceNormals highlighted in the pipeline), you should see a column header called 'Normals' with the values of your normal vector for each point. You can then use the normal vector to determine the second point of your plot over line filter. Hope that helps... Jack001 likes this.

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