An air jet emanating from a square conduit having an equivalent diamet
er of 4.34 cm and a centreline velocity of 4 m/s is forced using four
resonantly driven piezoelectric actuators placed along the sides of th
e square exit. Excitation is effected via amplitude modulation of the
resonant carrier waveform. The flow is normally receptive to time-harm
onic excitation at the modulating frequency but not at the resonant fr
equency of the actuators. When the excitation amplitude is high enough
, the excitation waveform is demodulated by a nonlinear process that i
s connected with the formation and coalescence of nominally spanwise v
ortices in the forced segments of the jet shear layer. As a result, th
e modulating and carrier wave trains undergo spatial amplification and
attenuation, respectively, downstream of the exit plane. Strong insta
bilities of the jet column are excited when the jet is forced at phase
relationships between actuators that correspond (to lowest order) to
the azimuthal modes m = 0, +/- 1, +/- 2, and - 1 of an axisymmetric fl
ow. The streamwise velocity component is measured phase locked to the
modulating signal in planes normal to the mean flow. Resonantly drivin
g the actuators with different carrier amplitudes results in a distort
ed mean flow having a featureless spectrum that can be tailored to pro
vide favourable conditions for the introduction and propagation of des
irable low-frequency disturbances.