Visualization of the Energy Flow for Guided Surface and Fluid Waves: Comparison and Contrast of Conventional Vector Field Vs. Color Coded Representation of the Poynting Vector

Comparison and contrast is made of two complementary methods of visualizing both the time-averaged and instantaneous elastodynamic Poynting vector for two examples showing elastic waves: the Rayleigh wave and the Lamb wave. The two methods are the conventional vector field approach with a set of Poynting vector arrows emanating from a grid of field points and a color coding scheme whereby hue is used to indicate the direction of the energy flow while intensity of the color is used to denote the magnitude of the Poynting vector at that point. Each of the two methods has its successes with some aspects of the visualization and deficiencies in others. The two methods in combination yield deeper insight into the Poynting vector field.