Vortical

In fluid dynamics, vortical means pertaining to a vortex or to vortices. The movement of a fluid can be said to be vortical if the fluid moves around in a circle, or in a helix, or if it tends to spin around some axis.

Vortical movement is characterized by non-zero vorticity, with vorticity \boldsymbol{\omega} defined as the curl of the flow velocity:

 \boldsymbol{\omega} = \operatorname{curl}\  \mathbf{v} \ne \mathbf{0},

where v is the velocity vector field of the fluid flow.

The curl of the velocity — at a specified point of the vector field — yields a vector which points in the direction around which the fluid flow is rotating.

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