Tamped Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability Experiments to Probe Material Strength

Dynamic interface instabilities including the Kelvin-Helmoltz (shear), Rayleigh-Taylor (acceleration), and Richtmyer-Meshkov (shock) instabilities play important roles in such varied conditions as explosive welding, inertial confinement fusion, and supernovae. Besides their importance to those applications, the emergence and development of these instabilities are influenced by the properties of the materials involved. Thus, they can be used as a way to study material behavior for unrelated applications. For example, Rayleigh-Taylor instability growth driven by lasers or explosive products has been used to study the high-pressure high-strain rate response of metals, and Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities (RMI) growth has been used to study the strength of metals at high strain rates and low pressures. Recently, tamped RMI experiments have extended the approach to elevated pressures by tamping with a liquid. If the behavior of the jetting material is known, the tamped RMI experiment can also be used to study the behavior of the tamping material. Effectively, it becomes a dynamic indentation/penetration experiment. This is especially useful when the tamping material is not a ductile metal suited to instability growth. Here, we explore scaling relationships for tamped RMI configurations through simulations. We also show results for strengths of metals. Then, with the behavior of the metal driver known, the RMI is used to characterize the strength of granular quartz used as a tamper material