Impinging jets are one of the most industrially essential methods of cooling, for example, the cooling of gas turbine blades and electronic devices, drying or annealing of glasses. Usually, jets are configured for a specific purpose, but the flow tends to be very complicated as each jet interacts with the others, especially near the impingement surface. In the present study, complicated three-dimensional flow from a square array of circular impinging jets was revealed experimentally to investigate the effect on heat transfer characteristics. The flow field was measured by scanning stereoscopic particle image velocimetry to confirm the detailed spatial features of the multiple circular impinging jets as nozzle-to-surface distance and jet-to-jet spacing were changed. Adjacent jets generated vortex rings and roll-up toward the nozzle plate, vortex rings and roll-up sizes changing depending on the experimental parameters. Differences in vorticity and dispersions of velocity from the jets were also observed. The temperature field of the impingement surface was measured using a thermosensitive liquid crystal technique. The spatial distribution of heat transfer coefficient was related to the flow field near the impingement surface.Keywords Impinging jet Á 3D flow configuration Á Heat transfer Á Particle image velocimetry Á Thermosensitive liquid crystal method List of symbols D Jet hole diameter (m) h Local heat transfer coefficient [W/(m 2 K)] L Injection distance from nozzle to target surface (m) N Number of jet holes, N = 3 9 3 = 9, all number of particle image Nu Local Nusselt number q w Heat flux supplied to heat transfer surface (W/m 2 ) r Radial direction distance from central jet (m) Re Reynolds number based on jet hole diameter S Jet-to-jet spacing (m) T J Jet temperature (K) T w Wall temperature (K) U Mean flow velocity (m/s) U k Instantaneous velocity of image number k (m/s)