This volume contains the contributions presented at the IUTAM Symposium on Asymptotic Methods for Turbulent Shear Flows, which was the first international conference on the subject. The book provides an overview of the state of the art in this field and presents results found worldwide. Asymptotic theory is here considered as the application of perturbation methods (singular perturbation methods, multiscale methods, rapid distortion theory etc.) to solving the Reynolds- averaged flow equations for turbulent shear flows at high Reynolds numbers. These methods play an important role in turbulence modelling, as is demonstrated by many examples, including turbulence models describing flow separation. It becomes evident that asymptotic methods enable the extraction of a fairly comprehensive set of results from the governing equations without incorporating a specific turbulence model a priori. Furthermore, these methods can be used to quickly eliminate unsatisfactory models.
The book contains valuable results for turbulence researchers, in particular for those working in turbulence modelling.