Beyond Thin Lines: the Vortex Bundle Model

It is common for flows, both natural and artificial, to contain concentrated regions of vorticity. These "vortex lines" are observed in a range of systems and at various scales; from a stirred cup of coffee to hurricanes. As a result, there is a long history of using models with infinitesimally thin vortex lines to study the motion of fluid. However, these models neglect core details and thus some phenomena (like vortex stretching) cannot be explored. In this talk, I will present a "vortex bundle" model, which incorporates local core details and interaction with boundary flows. This model allows us to compute a smooth flow field everywhere in space while ensuring the flow is divergence free. I will also present some preliminary results of vortex evolution using this model.