Eric Nied with Charles Rosenblatt
Rayleigh-Taylor Instability for At~1
The Rayleigh-Taylor instability occurs when a dense fluid falls into a less dense fluid under the influence of gravity. Understanding its evolution through time can help us better understand how immiscible fluids interact. However, most research previously performed concerning the Rayleigh-Taylor instability has been at low Atwood Numbers (At < 0.3) and suffered from the problems of jitter due to the difficulty of establishing initial conditions in the presence of Earth’s gravity. In this experiment I will aim for an Atwood Number approximately equal to 1 by levitating a magnetically permeable liquid solution above air. I will then induce a perturbation at the fluid interface before allowing the RT instability to take its course. My objectives are to measure quantitatively the growth rate of the fastest growing wave vector while the instability is in the linear regime, and observe the long-time behavior in the non-linear regime. I will also touch on other issues such as perfection of experimental design for future work.