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This volume contains a selection of the papers presented at the Eighth Symposium on Turbulent Shear Flows held at the Technical University of Munich, 9-11 September 1991. The first of these biennial international symposia was held at the Pennsylvania State Uni versity, USA, in 1977; subsequent symposia have been held at Imperial College, London, England; the University of California, Davis, USA; the University of Karlsruhe, Ger many; Cornell University, Ithaca, USA; the Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France; and Stanford University, California, USA. The purpose of this series of symposia is to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of new developments in the field of turbulence, especially as related to shear flows of importance in engineering and geo physics. From the 330 extended abstracts submitted for this symposium, 145 papers were presented orally and 60 as posters. Out of these, we have selected twenty-four papers for inclusion in this volume, each of which has been revised and extended in accordance with the editors' recommendations. The following four theme areas were selected after consideration of the quality of the contributions, the importance of the area, and the selection made in earlier volumes: - wall flows, - separated flows, - compressibility effects, - buoyancy, rotation, and curvature effects. As in the past, each section corresponding to the above areas begins with an introduction by an authority in the field that places the individual contributions in context with one another and with related research.

In spite of intensive efforts over many decades, the problem of turbulence remains as challenging as ever and the number of papers, books and conferences on this topic con tinues to grow. As experimental techniques and computing power have developed, the breadth of investigations into the structure and development of turbulent flows has in creased to encompass many diverse fields of application in engineering, physics, biolo gy and so on. As a consequence, it is now very difficult for a single research worker to keep in touch with the many developments that are taking place in turbulence. One of the few opportunities for obtaining some overall view of the subject arises from large international symposia on turbulence and, although they have some drawbacks, it is this opportunity that is one of their main merits. The International Symposium on Turbulent Shear Flows has now been held on three occasions and they seem to be established as a major opportunity for papers on a very diverse range of topics to be presented at a single meeting. This volume is a collec tion of papers from the third symposium that was held at the University of California, Davis from 9-11 September 1981. The papers are divided into four sections entitled Wall Flows, Scalar Transport, Recirculating Flows and Fundamentals. This collection represents about a third of the total number of papers presented.

A good understanding of turbulent compressible flows is essential to the design and operation of high-speed vehicles. Such flows occur, for example, in the external flow over the surfaces of supersonic aircraft, and in the internal flow through the engines. Our ability to predict the aerodynamic lift, drag, propulsion and maneuverability of high-speed vehicles is crucially dependent on our knowledge of turbulent shear layers, and our understanding of their behavior in the presence of shock waves and regions of changing pressure. Turbulent Shear Layers in Supersonic Flow provides a comprehensive introduction to the field, and helps provide a basis for future work in this area. Wherever possible we use the available experimental work, and the results from numerical simulations to illustrate and develop a physical understanding of turbulent compressible flows.

An experimental study of the effects of forced, free-stream unsteadiness on turbulent boundary layers was undertaken in an effort to characterize the nature of such flows and to provide guidance for turbulence modelers. A turbulent boundary layer, which had developed under steady, constant-pressure conditions, was locally subjected to a range of frequencies of sinusoidal free-stream unsteadiness. The response of the boundary layer to these free-stream effects was studied through simultaneous measurements of the u and v components of the velocity field, using a two-color laser-doppler anemometer. To focus on the distinct behaviors of the deterministic and time-averaged fields of flow, the equations of fluid motion were reformulated according to a triple decomposition of velocity and pressure into; (i) a time-averaged measure, (ii) a deterministic or organized, unsteady measure, and (iii) a turbulent measure.

This volume contains a selection of the papers presented at the Eighth Symposium on Turbulent Shear Flows held at the Technical University of Munich, 9-11 September 1991. The first of these biennial international symposia was held at the Pennsylvania State Uni versity, USA, in 1977; subsequent symposia have been held at Imperial College, London, England; the University of California, Davis, USA; the University of Karlsruhe, Ger many; Cornell University, Ithaca, USA; the Paul Sabatier University, Toulouse, France; and Stanford University, California, USA. The purpose of this series of symposia is to provide a forum for the presentation and discussion of new developments in the field of turbulence, especially as related to shear flows of importance in engineering and geo physics. From the 330 extended abstracts submitted for this symposium, 145 papers were presented orally and 60 as posters. Out of these, we have selected twenty-four papers for inclusion in this volume, each of which has been revised and extended in accordance with the editors' recommendations. The following four theme areas were selected after consideration of the quality of the contributions, the importance of the area, and the selection made in earlier volumes: - wall flows, - separated flows, - compressibility effects, - buoyancy, rotation, and curvature effects. As in the past, each section corresponding to the above areas begins with an introduction by an authority in the field that places the individual contributions in context with one another and with related research.