# curl

Curl and angular velocity of vector field

## Description

example

[curlx,curly,curlz,cav] = curl(X,Y,Z,Fx,Fy,Fz) computes the numerical curl and angular velocity of a 3-D vector field with vector components Fx, Fy, and Fz. The output curlx, curly, and curlz represent the vector components of the curl, and cav represents the angular velocity of the curl.

The arrays X, Y, and Z, which define the coordinates for the vector components Fx, Fy, and Fz, must be monotonic, but do not need to be uniformly spaced. X, Y, and Z must be 3-D arrays of the same size, which can be produced by meshgrid.

[curlx,curly,curlz,cav] = curl(Fx,Fy,Fz) assumes a default grid of sample points. The default grid points X, Y, and Z are determined by the expression [X,Y,Z] = meshgrid(1:n,1:m,1:p), where [m,n,p] = size(Fx). Use this syntax when you want to conserve memory and are not concerned about the absolute distances between points.

example

[curlz,cav] = curl(X,Y,Fx,Fy) computes the numerical curl and angular velocity of a 2-D vector field with vector components Fx and Fy. The output curlz represents the z-component of the curl, and cav represents the angular velocity of the curl.

The matrices X and Y, which define the coordinates for Fx and Fy, must be monotonic, but do not need to be uniformly spaced. X and Y must be 2-D matrices of the same size, which can be produced by meshgrid.

[curlz,cav] = curl(Fx,Fy) assumes a default grid of sample points. The default grid points X and Y are determined by the expression [X,Y] = meshgrid(1:n,1:m), where [m,n] = size(Fx). Use this syntax when you want to conserve memory and are not concerned about the absolute distances between points.

example

cav = curl(___) returns only the angular velocity of the vector field.

## Examples

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Load a 3-D vector field data set that represents a wind flow. The data set contains arrays of size 35-by-41-by-15.

Compute the numerical curl and angular velocity of the vector field.

[curlx,curly,curlz,cav] = curl(x,y,z,u,v,w);

Show a 2-D slice of the computed curl and angular velocity. Slice the data at z(:,:,1), where the $z$-coordinate is equal to -0.002.

k = 1;
xs = x(:,:,k);
ys = y(:,:,k);
zs = z(:,:,k);
us = u(:,:,k);
vs = v(:,:,k);

Plot the angular velocity in 2-D coordinates using pcolor. Show the $x$- and $y$-components of the vector field using quiver.

pcolor(xs,ys,cav(:,:,k))
colorbar
hold on
quiver(xs,ys,us,vs,'k')
hold off

Next, plot the components of the 3-D curl at the sliced $xy$-plane.

quiver3(xs,ys,zs,curlx(:,:,k),curly(:,:,k),curlz(:,:,k),'b')
view(0,90)

Specify 2-D coordinates and the vector field.

[x,y] = meshgrid(-4:4,-4:4);
Fx = -y*2;
Fy = x*2;

Plot the vector field components Fx and Fy.

quiver(x,y,Fx,Fy)

Find the numerical curl and angular velocity of the 2-D vector field. The values of curl and angular velocity are constant at all input coordinates.

[curlz,cav] = curl(x,y,Fx,Fy)
curlz = 9×9

4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4
4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4
4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4
4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4
4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4
4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4
4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4
4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4
4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4     4

cav = 9×9

2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2
2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2
2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2
2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2
2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2
2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2
2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2
2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2
2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2     2

Load a 3-D vector field data set that represents a wind flow. The data set contains arrays of size 35-by-41-by-15.

Compute the angular velocity of the vector field.

cav = curl(x,y,z,u,v,w);

Display the angular velocity of the vector volume data as slice planes. Show the angular velocity at the $yz$-planes with $x=90$ and $x=134$, at the $xz$-plane with $y=59$, and at the $xy$-plane with $z=0$. Use color to indicate the angular velocity at specified locations in the vector field.

h = slice(x,y,z,cav,[90 134],59,0);
colorbar
daspect([1 1 1]);
axis tight
camlight
set([h(1),h(2)],'ambientstrength',0.6);

## Input Arguments

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Input coordinates, specified as matrices or 3-D arrays.

• For 2-D vector fields, X and Y must be 2-D matrices of the same size, and that size can be no smaller than 2-by-2.

• For 3-D vector fields, X, Y, and Z must be 3-D arrays of the same size, and that size can be no smaller than 2-by-2-by-2.

Data Types: single | double
Complex Number Support: Yes

Vector field components at the input coordinates, specified as matrices or 3-D arrays. Fx, Fy, and Fz must be the same size as X, Y, and Z.

Data Types: single | double
Complex Number Support: Yes

## Output Arguments

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Vector components of the curl at the input coordinates, returned as matrices or 3-D arrays.

Angular velocity at the input coordinates, returned as a matrix or 3-D array.

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### Numerical Curl and Angular Velocity

The numerical curl of a vector field is a way to estimate the components of the curl using the known values of the vector field at certain points.

For a 3-D vector field of three variables $F\left(x,y,z\right)={F}_{x}\left(x,y,z\right)\text{\hspace{0.17em}}{\stackrel{^}{e}}_{x}+{F}_{y}\left(x,y,z\right)\text{\hspace{0.17em}}{\stackrel{^}{e}}_{y}+{F}_{z}\left(x,y,z\right)\text{\hspace{0.17em}}{\stackrel{^}{e}}_{z}$, the definition of the curl of F is

The angular velocity is defined as $\omega =\frac{1}{2}\left(\nabla ×F\right)·\stackrel{^}{F}$.

For a 2-D vector field of two variables $F\left(x,y\right)={F}_{x}\left(x,y\right)\text{\hspace{0.17em}}{\stackrel{^}{e}}_{x}+{F}_{y}\left(x,y\right)\text{\hspace{0.17em}}{\stackrel{^}{e}}_{y}$, the curl is

The angular velocity is defined as $\omega =\frac{1}{2}{\left(\nabla ×F\right)}_{z}=\frac{1}{2}\left(\frac{\partial {F}_{y}}{\partial x}-\frac{\partial {F}_{x}}{\partial y}\right){\stackrel{^}{e}}_{z}$.

## Algorithms

curl computes the partial derivatives in its definition by using finite differences. For interior data points, the partial derivatives are calculated using central difference. For data points along the edges, the partial derivatives are calculated using single-sided (forward) difference.

For example, consider a 2-D vector field F that is represented by the matrices Fx and Fy at locations X and Y with size m-by-n. The locations are 2-D grids created by [X,Y] = meshgrid(x,y), where x is a vector of length n and y is a vector of length m. curl then computes the partial derivatives Fy / ∂x and Fx / ∂y as

• dFy_dx(:,i) = (Fy(:,i+1) - Fy(:,i-1))/(x(i+1) - x(i-1)) and

dFx_dy(j,:) = (Fx(j+1,:) - Fx(j-1,:))/(y(j+1) - y(j-1))

for interior data points.

• dFy_dx(:,1) = (Fy(:,2) - Fy(:,1))/(x(2) - x(1)) and

dFy_dx(:,n) = (Fy(:,n) - Fy(:,n-1))/(x(n) - x(n-1))

for data points at the left and right edges.

• dFx_dy(1,:) = (Fx(2,:) - Fx(1,:))/(y(2) - y(1)) and

dFx_dy(m,:) = (Fx(m,:) - Fx(m-1,:))/(y(m) - y(m-1))

for data points at the top and bottom edges.

The numerical curl of the vector field is equal to curlz = dFy_dx - dFx_dy and the angular velocity is cav = 0.5*curlz.

## Version History

Introduced before R2006a