The Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability of a New Type of Broadband Initial Condition

The Richtmyer-Meshkov instability is experimentally investigated using a broadband initial condition imposed on an interface of helium+acetone over argon. The initial condition is created, first by setting up a gravitationally stable stagnation plane, and then injecting the gases horizontally at the interface to create a shear layer. The perturbations along the shear layer create a statistically repeatable broadband initial condition. The interface is accelerated by a $M$ = 1.6 and $M$ = 2.1 planar shock wave, inducing a growth of the interface perturbations. The development of this turbulent mixing layer is investigated using PLIF.