Development of point source method and its practical significance

The advantages of Reichardt's hypothesis in dealing with single and multiple circular jets in a stagnant environment are highlighted. The stages involved in the development of the point source method, an offshoot of the new hypothesis, are presented. Previous results of experiments on multiple circular jets in a stagnant environment justify the method of superposition. As a prelude to discussion of multiple jets in a co-flowing stream, results on the excess-velocity decay, the growth of the shear layer, and the dilutions for a single jet based on Reichardt's hypothesis are presented. The spreading hypothesis is generalized by introducing a link factor kl to account for the co-flowing stream. The distribution of excess-momentum flux uΔu is shown to be Gaussian in nature. Based on the principle of superposition, the decay of the maximum excess velocity and the dilution are predicted for odd and even numbers of jets in an array. The predictions seem to be in good agreement with observed data.