3D Simulations to Investigate Initial Condition Effects on the Growth of Rayleigh-Taylor Mixing

Author

Arindam Banerjee, Missouri University of Science and TechnologyFollow
Malcolm J. Andrews

Abstract

The effect of initial conditions on the growth rate of turbulent Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) mixing has been studied using carefully formulated numerical simulations. An implicit large-eddy simulation (ILES) that uses a finite-volume technique was employed to solve the three-dimensional incompressible Euler equations with numerical dissipation. The initial conditions were chosen to test the dependence of the RT growth parameters (αb, αs) on variations in (a) the spectral bandwidth, (b) the spectral shape, and (c) discrete banded spectra. Our findings support the notion that the overall growth of the RT mixing is strongly dependent on initial conditions. Variation in spectral shapes and bandwidths are found to have a complex effect of the late time development of the RT mixing layer, and raise the question of whether we can design RT transition and turbulence based on our choice of initial conditions. In addition, our results provide a useful database for the initialization and development of closures describing RT transition and turbulence.

Recommended Citation

A. Banerjee and M. J. Andrews, "3D Simulations to Investigate Initial Condition Effects on the Growth of Rayleigh-Taylor Mixing," International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, Elsevier, Aug 2009.

The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijheatmasstransfer.2009.03.032

Department(s)

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Sponsor(s)

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Keywords and Phrases

ILES; Initial Conditions; Instabilities; Rayleigh-Taylor

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0017-9310

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Citation

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2009 Elsevier, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Aug 2009