Comprehensive numerical methodology for direct numerical simulations of compressible Rayleigh-Taylor instability

Technical Report · Fri Sep 02 00:00:00 EDT 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1321662· OSTI ID:1321662

Reckinger, Scott James ^[1]; Livescu, Daniel ^[2]; Vasilyev, Oleg V. ^[3]

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1. Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States)
2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
3. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)

A comprehensive numerical methodology has been developed that handles the challenges introduced by considering the compressive nature of Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) systems, which include sharp interfacial density gradients on strongly stratified background states, acoustic wave generation and removal at computational boundaries, and stratification-dependent vorticity production. The computational framework is used to simulate two-dimensional single-mode RTI to extreme late-times for a wide range of flow compressibility and variable density effects. The results show that flow compressibility acts to reduce the growth of RTI for low Atwood numbers, as predicted from linear stability analysis.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC52-06NA25396
• OSTI ID: 1321662
• Report Number(s): LA-UR-16-26726; TRN: US1601889
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

97 MATHEMATICS AND COMPUTING
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR INSTABILITY
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
COMPRESSIBILITY
SOUND WAVES
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
INSTABILITY GROWTH RATES
PLASMA DENSITY
STRATIFICATION
VORTICES