Simulated Fluid Flow for Presentations

Have you ever needed to create a presentation where you wanted to show fluid flow ?

Here is an interesting technique using mechanism to create a fluid flow simulation.

The idea is simple enough; create a basic "swirl" geometry...

This is a simple helical sweep following whatever shape you want the fluid to follow.  In my case, a simple conic.

Save a copy of your "vane" using the Mirror Part option.

I used an assembly to pattern the single vain. 

For some reason, patterning failed within the part file, so to simplify the overhead I made this assembly and one like it with the mirrored vane.

In the next-level assembly, both the original and the mirror version are assembled on top of each other.

In the Mechanism application, you can use either a motor or a gear connection to rotate these assemblies in opposite directions.

I also applied a glass appearance.  This makes for a profound effect when you use the Shade with Reflections for your annotation.

Just remember that transparency can add a huge overhead to your graphics processing.  The above image has transparency disabled in Options.

Here is the mechanism animation comparing use of lower quality graphics in Shaded mode and HQ settings and Shaded with Reflection selected:

Flow rates are easily managed with Mechanism and volumes can be simulated with the initial geometry.

Remember to use HD setting in YouTube.

Enjoy!