Original Author: Suresh A. Atapattu
Authors Gallery: http://www.atapattu.net/
This photo is of a vortex created by a modern turbofan jet turbine engine during start-up. This engine powers a C-5 Galaxy US military cargo plane. I appreciate that this phenomenon wasn’t intended or predicted during initial engineering of this aircraft, however this type of vortex happens frequently with the C-5 galaxy. I appreciate how the photographer focused on the vortex having a large contribution to the composition of this photo, other images capturing this phenomenon included the full plane. This subtracted from the overall focus on the vortex in my opinion.
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Third Place. Not as visually stunning as the other two entries I voted on, however, this is definitely the most interesting entry to me. I had no idea that jet engines created a vortex in this manner.
Second Place. I love how minimal this image with, but still conveys the concept of the flow. It also look oddly eerie in my opinion.
Third Place. I’ve never seen a vortex like this before as I didn’t know this could even occur in this way. It is really cool to see something new and it is very fascinating to me.
third choice: I love this one! So cool to see a vortex. created by a jet engine.
First choice. Not only is this a perfect example of a low pressure vortex, it doesn’t even look real. The fact that this is an unintentional phenomenon makes this even cooler to me.
Nice submission Daniel. This is a great example of a turbofan ingesting the ground vortex. When a jet engine operates near the ground and there is not a large crosswind a ground vortex which ends at the fan will always be present. What makes this photo so unique is that the conditions in the local atmosphere (specifically relative humidity and dew point) were just right that the drop in pressure in the vortex was able to cause the water vapor to condense making the vortex visible. The ground vortex is actually a problem in jet engine design because it produces a periodic forcing on the fan blades as they pass by the vortex. That periodic forcing poses structural risks if the fan and inlet are not well designed. During jet engine design validation a test is actually run where the engineers mount a large plate called a “ground plane” under the engine on the test stand to simulate the effect of the ground and the ground vortex.
http://scitechdaily.com/images/NASAs-Aviation-Safety-Program-technology-for-engine-glitches.jpg
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