Experimental, numerical and theoretical investigation of the converging Richtmyer-Meshkov instability in a conventional shock tube

International audienceSince several years, the CEA/DAM and the IUSTI laboratory investigate the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability [1, 2] at the interface between two fluids in cylindrical geometry while still using a conventional shock tube. Two configurations have been studied: the heavy-to-light case where the incident shock wave goes from SF 6 to air, and the light-to-heavy case where the incident shock wave goes from air to SF 6. The effects of compression, geometrical convergence, and the subsequent deceleration of the flow on the perturbed interface, i.e. the Bell-Plesset (BP) effects [3, 4], are quantified for these two configurations