Wavelet analysis of mixing patterns in a turbulent jet

In this article the method of wavelet analysis as a generalization of the Fourier transform is briefly introduced. It is a convenient tool to calculate the local spectrum of the energy of spatial patterns or the frequency of a temporal signal in function of the degree of localization. Thus, the complex energy cascade process in turbulent flows can be analysed on various scales spatially as well as temporally. As a first application, the analysis of a one-dimensional spatial signal from a turbulent jet experiment (Merkel 1998) is presented.