A Stationarized Lagrangian Jet

Limitations of the applicability of universality in turbulence, as it was introduced by Kolmogorov in 1941, are often observed, especially in non-homogeneous flows deviating from idealized conditions, e.g. jets, wakes, canopies, etc. The study of such turbulent flows from a Lagrangian perspective gives insights into mixing and transport from the viewpoint of the fluid element as it experiences the flow field, but the lack of statistical stationarity poses challenges for analysis and modeling. In 1957, Batchelor proposed a method to “stationarize” the trajectories of flow fields which are spatially inhomogeneous, if they are also self-similar. An extension of  such a transformation is herein applied to experimental data from a turbulent jet. Analysis of the stationarized jet Lagrangian statistics is performed and results are compared to trends observed in homogeneous, isotropic and stationary turbulence to validate the methods presented.