An experimental study was conducted to investigate the evolutions of unsteady vortex structures downstream a lobed mixer/nozzle.Anovel dual-plane stereoscopic PIVsystem was used to measure all 3-components of vorticity distributions to revealed both the large-scale streamwise vortices produced by the lobed mixer/nozzle and the Kelvin-Helmholtz vortex structures generated due to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities simultaneously and quantitatively for the first time.The instantaneous and the ensemble-averaged vorticity distributions displayed quite different aspects about the evolutions of the unsteady vortex structures.While the ensemble-averaged vorticity distributions indicated the overall effect of the special geometry of the lobed nozzle/mixer on the enhanced mixing process

the instantaneous vorticity distributions elucidated many details about how the enhanced mixing process was conducted.In addition to quantitatively confirming conjectures of previous studies

further insight about the formation

evolution and interaction characteristics of the unsteady vortex structures downstream of the lobed mixer/nozzle were also uncovered quantitatively in the present study.