Investigation of the Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities

Technical Report · Wed Jan 14 00:00:00 EST 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/820806· OSTI ID:820806

Bonazza, Riccardo; Anderson, Mark; Smith, Leslie

Some of the major difficulties encountered in the effort to achieve nuclear fusion by means of inertial confinement arise from the unstable behavior of the interface between the shell material and the nuclear fuel which develops upon implosion of the shell by direct or indirect laser drive. The fluid flows that develop (termed the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) and the Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instabilities) cause the gassified shell material to mix with the nuclear fuel, causing a reduction in energy yield or no ignition altogether. The present research program addresses the Rayleigh-Taylor and the Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities with extensive laboratory and computational experiments. In the past year, three new activities have been initiated: a new shock tube experiment, involving the impulsive acceleration of a test gas-filled soap bubble, diagnosed with planar Mie scattering or planar induced fluorescence; a Rayleigh-Taylor experiment based on the use of a magnetorheological (MR) fluid to fix the initial shape of the interface between the MR fluid and water; and a series of computer calculations using the Raptor code (made available by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) to design and simulate the shock tube experiments.

• Research Organization: University of Wisconsin - Madison
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)
• DOE Contract Number: FG52-03NA00061
• OSTI ID: 820806
• Report Number(s): DOE/NA/00061-1; TRN: US0703417
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ACCELERATION
COMPUTER CALCULATIONS
DESIGN
ENERGY YIELD
FLUID FLOW
FLUORESCENCE
IGNITION
IMPLOSIONS
INERTIAL CONFINEMENT
LASERS
NUCLEAR FUELS
RESEARCH PROGRAMS
SCATTERING
SHAPE
SHOCK TUBES
SOAPS
WATER
Richtmyer-Meshkov instability
Rayleigh-Taylor instability
shock-induced interfacial instability
shock-induce mixing
interfacial turbulent mixing