Shock-induced turbulent mixing is important in high-speed propulsion and inertial confinement fusion, but turbulence under such conditions remains poorly understood. This INCITE project performs high-resolution simulations of shock-induced turbulent mixing that results from Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability.
The simulations focus on the interaction of a planar shockwave with a nominally planar fluid interface that is at an inclination with respect to the shockwave. They build on recent results that suggest anomalous energy scaling in compressible variable-density flows arising from the RM instability. This research is the first to establish a new regime of mode-coupling in shock-induced mixing and quantify the effects of compressibility and the fundamental compressible energy transfer mechanisms.
A critical milestone for the turbulence community, this work will create a benchmark-quality database for shock-induced missing that is validated against experiments, and for which the effect of the numerical method is carefully quantified and shown to be small. The results will advance the state of the art in simulations of RM instability-driven mixing and help improve engineering models of variable density-turbulence, which will enable innovations in new combustion devices and propulsion systems.
