A further phenomenon of importance is whether a plume has laminar flow or turbulent flow. Usually, there is a transition from laminar to turbulent as the plume moves away from its source. This phenomenon can be clearly seen in the rising column of smoke from a cigarette. When high accuracy is required, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) can be employed to simulate plumes, but the results can be sensitive to the turbulence model chosen. CFD is often undertaken for rocket plumes, where condensed phase constituents can be present in addition to gaseous constituents. These types of simulations can become quite complex, including afterburning and thermal radiation, and (for example) ballistic missile launches are often detected by sensing hot rocket plumes.
Spacecraft designers are sometimes concerned with impingement of attitude control system thruster plumes onto sensitive subsystems like solar arrays and star trackers, or with the impingement of rocket engine plumes onto moon or planetary surfaces where they can cause local damage or even mid-term disturbances to planetary atmospheres.
Another phenomenon which can also be seen clearly in the flow of smoke from a cigarette is that the leading-edge of the flow, or the starting-plume, is quite often approximately in the shape of a ring-vortex (smoke ring).