Investigation of the Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability with Stereolithographed Interfaces

Abstract

A novel method to set highly accurate initial conditions has been designed in the context of shock tube experiments for the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability study. Stereolithography has been used to design the membrane supports which initially materialize the gaseous interface. The visualizations of both heavy-light and light-heavy sinusoidal interfaces were carried out with laser sheet diagnostics. Experiments are in very good agreement with theory and simulations for the heavy-light case, but probably due to the membrane effects, quickly deviate from them in the light-heavy configuration.