Growth of shocked gaseous interfaces in a conical geometry

The results of experiments on Richtmyer–Meshkov instability growth of multimode initial perturbations on an air–sulfur hexafluoride (SF6) interface in a conical geometry are presented. The experiments are done in a relatively larger shock tube. A nominally planar interface is formed by sandwiching a polymeric membrane between wire-mesh frames. A single incident shock wave ruptures the membrane resulting in multimode perturbations. The instability develops from the action of baroclinically deposited vorticity at the interface. The visual thickness d of the interface is measured from schlieren photographs obtained in each run. Data are presented for d at times when the interface has become turbulent. The data are compared with the experiments of Vetter @Shock Waves 4, 247 ~1995!# which were done in a straight test section geometry, to illustrate the effects of area convergence. It is found from schlieren images that the interface thickness grows about 40% to 50% more rapidly than in Vetter’s experiments. Laser induced scattering is used to capture the air–helium interface at late times. Image processing of pictures is also used to determine the interface thickness in cases where it was not clear from the pictures and to obtain the dominant eddy–blob sizes in the mixing zone. Some computational studies are also presented to show the global geometry changes of the interface when it implodes into a conical geometry in both light– heavy and heavy–light cases. © 2003 American Institute of Physics. @DOI: 10.1063/1.1608011#