A three-dimensional ‘turbulent spot’ has been induced in the axisymmetric free mixing layer of a 12.7 cm diameter air jet by a spark generated at the nozzle boundary layer upstream of the exit. The spot coherent-structure signature, buried in the large-amplitude random fluctuating signal, has been educed at three downstream stations within the apparent self-preserving region of the mixing layer (i.e. x/D = 1.5, 3.0 and 4.5) at the jet exit speed of 20 ms−1. The eduction has been performed through digital phase averaging of the spot signature from 200 realizations. In order to reduce the effect of the turbulence-induced jitter on the phase average, individual filtered signal arrays were optimally time-aligned through an iterative process of cross-correlation of each realization with the ensemble average. Further signal enhancement was achieved through rejection of realizations requiring excessive time shifts for alignment. The number of iterations required and the fraction of realizations rejected progressively increase with the downstream distance and the radial position.The mixing-layer spot is a large-scale elongated structure spanning the entire width of the layer but does not appear to exhibit a self-similar shape. The dynamics of the mixing-layer spot and its eduction are more complicated than those of the boundary-layer spot. The spot initially moves downstream essentially at a uniform speed across the mixing layer, but further downstream it accelerates on the high-speed side and decelerates on the low-speed side. This paper discusses the data acquisition and processing techniques and the results based on the streamwise velocity signals. Phase average distributions of vorticity, pseudo-streamlines, coherent and background Reynolds stresses and further dynamics of the spot are presented in part 2 (Hussain, Kleis & Sokolov 1980).
PIV and OH PLIF study of impinging propane-air jet-flames