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Experiments on the Richtmyer–Meshkov instability with an imposed, random initial perturbation

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Abstract

A vertical shock tube is used to perform experiments on the Richtmyer–Meshkov instability with a three-dimensional random initial perturbation. A membraneless flat interface is formed by opposed gas flows in which the light and heavy gases enter the shock tube from the top and from the bottom of the shock tube driven section. An air/SF\(_{6}\) gas combination is used and a Mach number \( M = 1.2\) incident shock wave impulsively accelerates the interface. Initial perturbations on the interface are created by vertically oscillating the gas column within the shock tube to produce Faraday waves on the interface resulting in a short wavelength, three-dimensional perturbation. Planar Mie scattering is used to visualize the flow in which light from a laser sheet is scattered by smoke seeded in the air, and image sequences are captured using three high-speed video cameras. Measurements of the integral penetration depth prior to reshock show two growth behaviors, both having power law growth with growth exponents in the range found in previous experiments and simulations. Following reshock, all experiments show very consistent linear growth with a growth rate in good agreement with those found in previous studies.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and by the National Nuclear Security Administration under the Stewardship Science Academic Alliances program.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, 85721, USA

    J. W. Jacobs, V. V. Krivets, V. Tsiklashvili & O. A. Likhachev

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  1. J. W. Jacobs
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  2. V. V. Krivets
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  3. V. Tsiklashvili
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  4. O. A. Likhachev
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to J. W. Jacobs.

Additional information

Communicated by M. Brouillette and K. Kontis.

The paper was based on work that was presented at the 28th International Symposium on Shock Waves, 17–22 July 2011, Manchester, UK.

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Jacobs, J.W., Krivets, V.V., Tsiklashvili, V. et al. Experiments on the Richtmyer–Meshkov instability with an imposed, random initial perturbation. Shock Waves 23, 407–413 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00193-013-0436-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00193-013-0436-9

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