Experimental and numerical investigation of reactive shock-accelerated flows

Technical Report · Tue Dec 20 00:00:00 EST 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1336609· OSTI ID:1336609

Bonazza, Riccardo ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States). Dept. of Engineering Physics

The main goal of this program was to establish a qualitative and quantitative connection, based on the appropriate dimensionless parameters and scaling laws, between shock-induced distortion of astrophysical plasma density clumps and their earthbound analog in a shock tube. These objectives were pursued by carrying out laboratory experiments and numerical simulations to study the evolution of two gas bubbles accelerated by planar shock waves and compare the results to available astrophysical observations. The experiments were carried out in an vertical, downward-firing shock tube, 9.2 m long, with square internal cross section (25×25 cm²). Specific goals were to quantify the effect of the shock strength (Mach number, M) and the density contrast between the bubble gas and its surroundings (usually quantified by the Atwood number, i.e. the dimensionless density difference between the two gases) upon some of the most important flow features (e.g. macroscopic properties; turbulence and mixing rates). The computational component of the work performed through this program was aimed at (a) studying the physics of multi-phase compressible flows in the context of astrophysics plasmas and (b) providing a computational connection between laboratory experiments and the astrophysical application of shock-bubble interactions. Throughout the study, we used the FLASH4.2 code to run hydrodynamical and magnetohydrodynamical simulations of shock bubble interactions on an adaptive mesh.

• Research Organization: Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Fusion Energy Sciences (FES)
• DOE Contract Number: SC0010730
• OSTI ID: 1336609
• Report Number(s): DOE-Wisconsin-0010730-F; 6082652337; TRN: US1701407
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
COMPUTERIZED SIMULATION
ASTROPHYSICS
PLASMA DENSITY
SCALING LAWS
BUBBLES
COMPRESSIBLE FLOW
MACH NUMBER
SHOCK TUBES
GASES
MULTIPHASE FLOW
SHOCK WAVES
TIME DEPENDENCE
MIXING
TURBULENCE
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
HYDRODYNAMICS
COSMIC GASES
Shock-driven turbulence
Astrophysical shocks
Astrophysical plasmas
Density clumps
Shock-accelerated inhomogeneous flows