Chapter 21

2D Vortex Methods

Vortex methods are powerful numerical methods to study the evolution of inviscid
flow fields. The idea behind the method will be developed in the following notes.

21.1 Vorticity and Streamfunction

The 3D vorticity is defined as the curl of the velocity vector:

=u (21.1)

The velocity vector, for an incompressible fluid, must satisfy the continuity equa-
tion
u = 0. (21.2)
This condition is immediately satisfied by introducing a vector streamfunction
such that the velocity is its curl:

u= (21.3)

since vector identities guarantees that the divergence of a curl is always zero u =
= 0. The vorticity can now be written in terms of the streamfunction
guaranteeing that the resultant flow field is divergence-free:

= = ( ) 2 (21.4)

The above equation can be further simplified by requiring that the streamfunc-
tion vector be divergence-free. We then obtain a vector Poisson equation for the
streamfunction for a given vorticity field:

2 = (21.5)

199
200 CHAPTER 21. 2D VORTEX METHODS

The situation is considerably simpler in 2D where the streamfunction is a scalar,

, and where only the vorticity component perpendicular to the plane is non-zero
= k. The vector Poisson equation reduces to a scalar Poisson equation:

2 = (21.6)

The important point about vorticity is that for two-dimensional inviscid flows,
and in the absence of vorticity sources, the equation governing the evolution of the
vorticity is simple and states that the vorticity is conserved following the flow:

d
= + u = 0 (21.7)
dt t
The idea behind vortex method is then simply to represent the vorticity fields as a
collection of vortex patches carrying an intrinsic amount of vorticity. This vorticity
has associated with it a flow field which in turn will advect these patches around
without changing their intrinsic vorticity. The flow field will of course change once
the patches change position, and one merely has to track them in order to simulate
the flow evolution.

21.2 Flow due to point vortices

Here we derive the relationship between a vorticity source and the induced stream-
function and velocity in an infinite plane with no boundaries. This derivation uses
the Green function approach where the forcing, the vorticity source, is concen-
trated at points and has infinite strength in a pointwise sense, but finite strength
in an area-averaged sense. We first look at the impact of a single point vortex
then use the linearity of the equations to superpose solution when multiple vortex
points are located.

21.2.1 Flow due to single point vortex

An analytical expression for the streamfunction equation can be derived for the
special case where there is a single impulse vorticity in an infinite domain

(r)
2 = , r = x x0 , r = |x x0 | (21.8)
2r
where is now simply the strength of a concentrated vortex point. The Green
function solution is then simply

ln r ln |x x0 |
(x) = (x0 ) = (x0 ) (21.9)
2 2
21.2. FLOW DUE TO POINT VORTICES 201

The velocity associated with this streamfunction field is then:

(rk) r k
u = (k) = (x0 ) = (x0 ) (21.10)
2r 2r
q
Since r = (x x0 )2 + (y y0 )2 we have r = r/r. The velocity induced by a
point vortex with strength is then:

rk (x x0 ) k k (x x0 )
u(x) = (x0 ) = (x0 ) = (x0 ) (21.11)
2r 2 2|x x0 | 2 2|x x0 |2

21.2.2 Flow due to multiple point vortices

The linearity of equations 21.8, 21.10, and 21.11 makes it possible to invoke the
principle of superposition to account for the presence of multiple point vortices in
the flow. Tagging each point vortex by a subscript i, we can immediately write
down the expression of the streamfunction and velocity imparted by each of them
to the point located at x:

ln |x xi |
i (x) = (xi ) (21.12)
2
k (x xi )
ui (x) = (xi ) (21.13)
2|x xi |2

where xi is the location of the i-th vortex and (xi) is its strength. The total
imparted velocity/streamfunction can be obtained by summing the individual con-
tributions:
N N
X X ln |x xi |
(x) = i (x) = (xi ) (21.14)
i=1 i=1 2
N N
X X k (x xi )
u(x) = ui (x) = (xi) (21.15)
i=1 i=1 2|x xi |2

Figure 21.1 shows the streamfunction field and the velocity induced by 1, 2, 3 and
4 point vortices of similar strengths. The streamlines are shown by contours and
the velocity field by arrows.
If an infinite number of vortex element are present, the summation becomes an
area integral:
k (x x0 )
Z
u(x) = (x0 ) dx0 (21.16)
2|x x0 |2
The integration is carried out on the location of the impulse x0 , and where dx0
represents an area element. The above equation is often written in the form u(x) =
202 CHAPTER 21. 2D VORTEX METHODS

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

0 0

1 1

2 2

3 3

4 4

5 5
5 4 3 2 1 0 1 2 3 4 5 5 0 5

5 5

4 4

3 3

2 2

1 1

0 0

1 1

2 2

3 3

4 4

5 5
5 0 5 5 0 5

Figure 21.1: Streamfunction contours and flow field induced by a unit-strong vortex
located on the diamond (2, 0) and (0, 2).
21.3. FROM POINTS TO BLOBS 203

K(x x0 ) (x0) where the the stands for a convolution operation and K is
called the Kernel. Equation 21.16 is the 2D version of the Biot-Savart law, and
can be seen as the continuous form of equation 21.15.
We have derived the continuous Biot-Savart law starting from discrete impulses
to continuum forcing of the form (x0 ). It is useful to reverse this trajectory and
re-derive the discrete system starting from the continuum. If the vorticity consists
of particles carrying a certain amount of vorticity distributed according to:

i (x0 ) = i i (|x xi |) with (|x0 xi |) 0 as |x0 xi | (21.17)

where i is the circulation around the ith particle. We require further that decays
fairly quickly with distance from the center.
N
k (x x0 )
X Z
u(x) = i (x0 xi ) dx0 (21.18)
i=1 2|x x0 |2

In the limiting case where the (x0 xi ) is the 2D Dirac delta function the expres-
sion simplifies to:
N
X k (x xi )
u(x) = i (21.19)
i=1 2|x xi |2

21.3 From points to blobs

One problem with approximating the vorticity with delta functions, i.e. infinite
spikes, is the associated singularity in the streamfunction and velocity fields. This
singularity appears when the distance to the point vortex becomes very small,
r = |x x0 | = 0: both streamfunction and velocity become very large; the first
blows up logarithmically fast and the other like r 1 . This is quite problematic
in the evaluation of the sums. It is therefore most useful to replace the spiky
representation of the vorticity by blobs; these blobs will have finite widths and
hence the associated singularity is removed. The questions become how do we
construct the vorticity representation of the blobs, and what are the streamfunction
and velocity Kernels associated with it?
In order to build these representations we retrace the path followed in the
derivation of the point vortex methods. We thus assume that each vortex blob has
associated with it a localized shape function, = (r) that is radially symmetric
about the center of the blob, that decays as we move away from the center, and
whose integral over the entire plane is unity. Under these assumptions, the solution
to the Poisson equation is still expected to be radially symmetric and reduces to:
!
1 G
r = (r) (21.20)
r r r
204 CHAPTER 21. 2D VORTEX METHODS

where (r) is yet an undetermined function and G its corresponding Green function.
The above equation can be integrated twice to yield:
G 1 r
Z
= s(s) ds (21.21)
r r 0
1 r
t
Z Z 
G(r) = s(s) ds dt (21.22)
0 t 0

Here r and s are integration variables. Once a vortex representation (r) is chosen,
equation 21.21 can be used to compute the velocity kernel, and equation 21.22 to
compute the streamfunction kernel. It is the former that is most critical and we
have
k (x x0 ) G k (x x0 ) r
Z
K(x) = = s(s) ds (21.23)
r r r2 0

21.3.1 Gaussian blobs of second order

A common choice for the representation of the vorticity is to use a Gaussian func-
tion that has the form: 2 2
er /
(r) = (21.24)
2
where is the width of the blob, the proportionality factor is simply for normal-
ization so that the integral of the above function over the infinite plane is 1. The
vorticity distribution peaks at 12 at r = 0 and decays exponentially fast as we
get away from the blob center; the parameter determines how fast the function
decays. Notice that this function approaches the Dirac delta function as 0: its
width narrows to a point, its amplitude goes to , and its area integral remains
unity. The corresponding velocity kernel can be obtained by plugging the above
expression in 21.21 and evaluating the integral to obtain:
k (x x0 )  r 2 /2

K(x) = 1 e (21.25)
2r 2
Figure 21.2 shows the impact of the width parameter on the vortex blob. The
primary effect is to remove the effect of the singularity in the vicinity of the blob
center while mimicking the behavior of a point vortex as we move away from the
center.

21.3.2 Gaussian blobs of high order

The Gaussian blobs of the previous section can be shown to be second order in the
parameter , it is however, possible to derive higher order shape functions:
2   2 k (x x0 ) h  
r 2
i
4 (r) = 4 r 2 er K4 = 1 + r 2
1 e
2 2|x x0 |2
2  k (x x0 ) 1 4 r2
    
2
6 (r) = 6 6r 2 + r 4 er K6 = 1 1 2r 2
+ r e
2|x x0 |2 2
21.3. FROM POINTS TO BLOBS 205

Figure 21.2: Left panels: vortex blob Gaussian decay for several values of the blob
width : 0.4 (blue), 0.2 (green) and 0.1 (red). The right panels show the velocity
Kernel amplitude as a function of r; the black line refers to the point vortex case.
Top to bottom are the Gaussian blobs of order 2, 4 and 6, respectively.
206 CHAPTER 21. 2D VORTEX METHODS

where r = r/ is a scaled radius. The radial shape functions associated with the 4
and 6-th order Gaussian blobs are shown in figures 21.2. Again, the trend is clear
in that a Dirac delta function is approached as the width parameter shrinks, and
as the order increases. The corresponding velocity kernel amplitudes are shown in
the left panels. They all mimic the behavior of the point vortex away from the blob
center but decay to zero once at the vortex center instead of behaving singularly.

21.4 The vortex method algorithm

In this section we summarize the steps required to implement the vortex method
as a computational code. The steps are as follows:

Choose a shape function for the vorticity and the associated velocity Kernel.
To make the steps more concrete we assume that we have chosen the second
order Gaussian distribution and its velocity Kernel. So we have the following
approximations for the vorticity field and velocity:

N 2
X eri
(x) = i 2 (21.26)
i=1
N
X k (x xi )  r 2

u(x) = i 1 e (21.27)
i=1 2|x xi |2
r = |x xi |, ri = ri / (21.28)

Determine the width, , positions, xni and strengths, in of the vortex blobs
at an initial time; here the superscript n refers to the time step.

Determine the velocity field induced by all vortex blobs on all other blobs:
use equation 21.27 to compute u(xj ) for all particles j = 1, 2, . . . , N.

Update the particles position by integrating the equation

dxi
= u(xj ) (21.29)
dt

using a Runge-Kutta 4 integrator (this requires 4 stages). In the absence

of vorticity sources, the strength of each vortex blobs is preserved, so in
remains constant

Return to step 21.4 and repeat until final time. throughtout the calculation.
21.5. THE PRESENCE OF BOUNDARIES 207

21.5 The presence of boundaries

The vortex method is ideal for boundaries-free problem where the flow domain is
infinite. Accounting for boundaries in vortex methods is complicated provided the
formulation is modified. The procedure hinges on the Helmholtz decomposition
of a flow field into its potential (and irrotational) part and its solenoidal (and rota-
tional part). The solenoidal part can be evolved with the vortex method ignoring
the presence of boundaries. The potential part is then introduced to correct the
solenoidal fields and account for the no-flow conditions at the solid boundaries.
The potential part is governed by a Laplace equation and can be solved efficiently
with a Boundary Element Method. The 2 flow components can then be solved
with points and lines only.

21.5.1 The Helmholtz decomposition

It is well known that any flow field u can be decomposed into
u = us + up (21.30)
where us = 0 and up = 0. These two properties can be guaranteed if we
introduce a potential function and a streamfunction such that
up = and us = . (21.31)
Inserting these expressions in the Helmholtz decomposition we obtain the following
pair of equations
u = ( + ) = = 2 (21.32)
u = ( + ) = = 2 (21.33)
where we have assumed again, and without loss of generality, that the streamfunc-
tion is divergence-free (this is certainly the case in 2D). Given the divergence and
rotation of the original flow velocity equations 21.32 and 21.33 can be inverted for
the streamfunction and potential, respectively. The solution steps are as follow:
1. The rotational part of the flow is evolved according to the vorticity evolution
equation and the associated solenoidal velocity is obtained from the Biot-
Savart law as outlined in the discussion on the vortex method. This velocity
field will violate the boundary conditions of no-through flow.
2. The introduction of the potential velocity allows us to rectify the situation
and enforce the no-through condition. For an incompressible flow the gov-
erning equation for the potential is the Laplace equation coupled with a
Neumann boundary conditions at the boundaries:
2 = 0, and n = us n on (21.34)
where refers to the solid boundaries.