Constructing streamlines in steady flow on unstructured grids

Streamline is one of the basic techniques for flow visualization. Generally, constructing a streamline includes three main sub-procedures: point location, numerical integration and vector field interpolation. In this paper, by dividing the CFD computational grids which are curvilinear grids into tetrahedrons and set the topological relationship among the tetrahedrons, "compass" algorithm based on the normal vector of tetrahedron is used to fasten point location process. The method presented in this paper can generate streamlines in physical space directly and thus improve the efficiency and precision of streamline constructing.