Inhomogeneous vortex-shock interactions

Vortex rings have been observed to form following shock interaction in some configurations of the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability. These rings tend to propagate outside of the interfacial mixing region once formed, significantly enhancing mixing and transport into the otherwise-uniform bulk fluid. A series of experiments have been conducted to isolate and investigate the evolution of such rings upon M = 2.0 shock interaction, consisting of simultaneous PIV/high-speed PLIF imaging of inhomogeneous vortex rings at several Atwood numbers (0.06, 0.20, 0.51, and 0.66). Circulation production is shown to depend strongly on Atwood number, with contributions from vorticity deposition due to shock curvature across the vortex core.