We report on the results of an experiment to analyze and characterize the optical index of refraction structure of an air jet flow using chaotic measures. A laboratory jet flow was interrogated at several downstream positions using a thin laser beam jitter technique and the resulting time series jitter data were analyzed to determine phase space portraits, correlation dimensions, and Lyapunov exponents. These measures help describe the complexity and dynamics of the flow features. As expected, the results indicate an increase in complexity of the flow structure with downstream position. One interesting feature of the results is a sudden increase in the correlation dimension at a position of 5.5 nozzle diameters downstream of the opening, indicating a dramatic increase in complexity. These measurements and chaotic analyses of the jet-flow transition region have interesting implications for the understanding and modeling of the optics of aircraft boundary layers and wakes, stratified atmospheric layers, and atmospheric turbulence.

Date Published: 15 December 1995
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 2580, Optics in Atmospheric Propagation and Adaptive Systems, (15 December 1995); doi: 10.1117/12.228482

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2580:
Optics in Atmospheric Propagation and Adaptive Systems
Anton Kohnle, Editor(s)