the existence and crucial role played by large-scale, organized motions in turbulent flows are now recognized by industrial, applied and fundamental researchers alike. it has become increasingly evident that coherent structures influence mixing, noise, vibration, heat transfer, drag, etc. this volume contains selected papers from the iutam symposium entitled `eddy structure identification in free turbulent shear flows which was held in poitiers, france, october 12--14, 1992. the purpose of the iutam symposium was to address some important questions, which are documented in this volume: what is the state of the art of structure identification? how do these approaches work? how do the results from different techniques compare with one another? what kind of information can be obtained from the various methods (e.g., instantaneous results, vorticity, averages, statistics, etc...)? what are the new directions in detection methods and, correspondingly, what are their implications for turbulent flow analysis and prediction methods? £/list£ this book will contribute to the knowledge of coherent structure identification processes and will help guide future experimental, numerical and theoretical research in this area. turbulence researchers will find this volume an invaluable reference.