A comparison of two- and three-dimensional single-mode reshocked Richtmyer–Meshkov instability growth

The growth dynamics of two- and three-dimensional single-mode reshocked Richtmyer–Meshkov instability are compared systematically using data from high-resolution implicit large-eddy simulations of a model of the Mach 1.3 air(acetone) and sulfur hexafluoride (Jacobs and Krivets, 2005) shock tube experiment. The vorticity deposition by the incident shock and the dynamics of interface evolution are examined quantitatively and qualitatively. The perturbation amplitudes from the two- and three-dimensional simulations are compared to the experimental data and to the predictions of several nonlinear instability growth models. It is shown that the perturbation amplitudes from the two- and three-dimensional simulations with matching initial Richtmyer velocity are in excellent agreement with the experimental data. In addition, the dynamics of reshock (not considered in the experiment) are described in detail, and the post-reshock mixing layer amplitude growth rate is compared to the predictions of several reshock models. It is shown that using two-dimensional simulations to understand three-dimensional dynamics is valid only at early-to-intermediate times before reshock; at intermediate-to-late times after reshock the three-dimensional growth is generally larger than the corresponding two-dimensional growth. The reshock dynamics are also different between two and three dimensions. The quantitative results, together with visualizations of the flow field, were also used to contrast the difference between two- and three-dimensional vorticity and enstrophy dynamics.