SUMMARY
This paper is the first half of a two-part publication. In these papers the well-known low Mach number edge tone configuration is investigated that is one of thecanonical self-sustained flow configurations leading to simple aeroacoustic flow phe-nomena. The configuration consist of a planar free jet that impinges on a wedgeshaped object. Under certain circumstances the jet starts to oscillate more or lessperiodically thereby creating an oscillating force on the wedge that acts as a dipolesound source. The flow of the edge tone is investigated by experimental and numer-ical means and remarkable agreement is found. This first part contains a detailedliterature overview and the qualitative discussion of the authors’ results of a detailedparametric study.