Flow-visualization investigations and correlation measurements show that the essentially two-dimensional structures which dominated the turbulent mixing layer of Brown & Roshko (1974) are formed only if the free-stream turbulence is low. If free-stream disturbances are significant, as is likely in most practical cases, including a mixing layer entraining ‘still air’ from the surroundings, three-dimensionality develops at an early stage in transition. Other recent experiments strongly suggest that the Brown-Roshko structure will not form if the initial mixing layer is turbulent or subject to instability modes other than spanwise vortices. Therefore the Brown-Roshko structure will be rare in practice. The alternative large structure in a mixing layer, found by several workers, is intense, but fully three-dimensional and thus less orderly than the Brown-Roshko structure.

The balance of evidence suggests that if the Brown-Roshko structure does appear it will eventually relax into the alternative fully three-dimensional form: the Kármán vortex street behind a bluff body provides a precedent for slow development of three-dimensionality. However the Brown-Roshko structure, if formed, may well relax so slowly as to be identifiable for the full length of a practical flow.