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Rayleigh–Taylor mixing between density stratified layers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 December 2016

R. J. R. Williams
R. J. R. Williams*
Affiliation:
AWE Aldermaston, Reading, Berkshire RG7 4PR, UK
*
†Email address for correspondence: robin.williams@awe.co.uk
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Abstract

We have performed numerical calculations of fluid mixing driven by Rayleigh–Taylor instability for density profiles based on the stratified density experiments of Lawrie & Dalziel (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 688, 2011, pp. 507–527) and Davies Wykes & Dalziel (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 756, 2014, pp. 1027–1057). We find that the late-time mixing profiles are similar to their experimental results for similar initial conditions; we consider a range of additional initial conditions to investigate the robustness of the results. A model for the late-time structure of the mixing layer, based on the maximization of configurational entropy, is compared with the results of the numerical calculations, and shows good agreement.

JFM classification

Turbulent Flows: Stratified turbulence Mixing: Turbulent mixing Mathematical Foundations: Variational methods
Type
Papers
Information
Journal of Fluid Mechanics , Volume 810 , 10 January 2017 , pp. 584 - 602
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Copyright
© British Crown Owned Copyright 2016/AWE. Published by Cambridge University Press 2016. 

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