SUMMARY

The supersonic phenomena of a Blast Wave (BW) traveling against a density gradient creates a hydrodynamic instability that combines the classic Richtmyer-Meshkov and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities. This Blast Driven Instability (BDI) occurs across a gargantuan range of scales, from Supernova to Inertial Confinement Fusion pellets, making it of practical and fundamental interest to the Fluid Dynamics community. Experimental investigation of this phenomena has only been attempted on the millimeter scale in regimes of high energy and density, and while this work has provided key insights, the diagnostic capabilities leave much to be desired.

The present work highlights the design, construction, and testing of a new, meter-scale, experimental facility enabling the study of the BDI at non-diffuse, gaseous interfaces. Preliminary tests are conducted to ensure capable and repeatable operation in addition to determining if the facility faithfully probes the physics of interest. High speed Mie-scattering images of the instability evolution and pressure data are used to diagnose the preliminary results. This work shows that the facility abley demonstrates the creation of a non-diffuse planar interface, repeatable BW creation, and consistent temporal and spatial qualitative instability development.

The proposed work aims to employ more robust and powerful diagnostics to fully describe the developing flow field caused by this instability. The extraction of full velocity and density fields from the proposed diagnostics will enable a complete quantitative description of the flow's evolution and allow for the testing and validation of hydrodynamic codes and simulations. The technical objectives are, in short:

1.) Implement simultaneous Planar Laser Induced Fluorescence (PLIF) and Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) to obtain full velocity and density fields.

2.) Perform a parametric study to investigate the effect of Blast Wave strength (Mach number) and the density ratio of the two fluids used, on the development of the BDI.

3.) Determine the effect of initial interface perturbations on the development of the BDI and if the memory of those initial conditions persist into the turbulence transition.