NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF RICHTMYER-MESHKOV INSTABILITY USING FRONT TRACKING

Front tracking simulations of the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability produc e significantly better agreement with experimentally measured growth r ates than obtained in nontracking computations. Careful analysis of th e early stages of the shock acceleration process show that nonlinearit y and compressibility play a critical role in the behaviour of the sho cked interface and are responsible for the deviations from the linear theories. The late-time behaviour of the interface growth rate is comp ared to a nonlinear potential flow model of Hecht et al.