Preliminary results for the Study of Blast Driven Turbulence (RTI & RMI)

The presented work focuses on the initial testing and validation of a new experimental facility in the Georgia Tech Shock Tube and Advanced Mixing Laboratory, which allows for the study of blast-driven turbulence in a cylindrical geometry. The facility uses detonators to generate a blast wave, causing the flow to expand through a diverging test-chamber. The blast wave then interacts with a gaseous, membrane-less, interface of differing density, also allowing for the fundamental study of the combined Richtmyer-Meshkov (RMI) and Rayleigh-Taylor Instabilities (RTI).

Validation of the crucial aspects of the facility's performance are being completed to show that these phenomena can be faithfully and repeatedly reproduced. These include the following: Pressure readings taken at various locations along the blast trajectory. The creation of a non-diffuse gaseous interface and its trajectory after interaction with the blast wave has also been investigated using Mie Scattering in order to determine shot-to-shot variation of the facility. High speed Mie scattering data is presented as a preliminary result to understand the qualitative development of the instability in this new facility.