Charles Niederhaus

Experimental study of Rayleigh–Taylor instability: Low Atwood number liquid systems with single-mode initial perturbations

Single-mode Rayleigh–Taylor instability is experimentally studied in low Atwood number fluid systems. The fluids are contained in a tank that travels vertically on a linear rail system. A single-mode initial perturbation is given to the initially stably stratified interface by gently oscillating the tank in the horizontal direction to form standing internal waves. A weight and pulley system is used to accelerate the fluids downward in excess of the earth’s gravitational acceleration. Weight ranging from 90 to 450 kg produces body forces acting upward on the fluid system equivalent to those produced by a gravitational force of 0.33–1.35 times the earth’s gravity. Two fluid combinations are investigated: A miscible system consisting of a salt water solution and a water–alcohol solution; and an immiscible system consisting of a salt solution and heptane to which surfactant has been added to reduce the interfacial tension. The instability is visualized using planar laser-induced fluorescence and is recorded u...

Experimental Study of the Richtmyer-Meshkov Instability of Incompressible Fluids

Richtmyer-Meshkov (R-M) instability occurs when two different density fluids are impulsively accelerated in the direction normal to their nearly planar interface. The instability causes small perturbations on the interface to grow and possibly become turbulent given the proper initial conditions. R-M instability is similar to the Rayleigh-Taylor (R-T) instability, which is generated when the two fluids undergo a constant acceleration. R-M instability is a fundamental fluid instability that is important to fields ranging from astrophysics to high-speed combustion. For example, R-M instability is currently the limiting factor in achieving a net positive yield with inertial confinement fusion. The experiments described here utilize a novel technique that circumvents many of the experimental difficulties previously limiting the study of the R-M instability. A Plexiglas tank contains two unequal density liquids and is gently oscillated horizontally to produce a controlled initial fluid interface shape. The tank is mounted to a sled on a high speed, low friction linear rail system, constraining the main motion to the vertical direction. The sled is released from an initial height and falls vertically until it bounces off of a movable spring, imparting an impulsive acceleration in the upward direction. As the sled travels up and down the rails, the spring retracts out of the way, allowing the instability to evolve in free-fall until impacting a shock absorber at the end of the rails. The impulsive acceleration provided to the system is measured by a piezoelectric accelerometer mounted on the tank, and a capacitive accelerometer measures the low-level drag of the bearings. Planar Laser-Induced Fluorescence is used for flow visualization, which uses an Argon ion laser to illuminate the flow and a CCD camera, mounted to the sled, to capture images of the interface. This experimental study investigates the instability of an interface between incompressible, miscible liquids with an initial sinusoidal perturbation. The amplitude of the disturbance during the experiment is measured and compared to theory. The results show good agreement (within 10%) with linear stability theory up to nondimensional amplitude ka = 0.7 (wavenumber x amplitude). These results hold true for an initial ka (before acceleration) of -0.7 less than ka less than -0.06, while the linear theory was developed for absolute value of ka much less than 1. In addition, a third order weakly nonlinear perturbation theory is shown to be accurate for amplitudes as large as ka = 1.3, even though the interface becomes double-valued at ka = 1.1. As time progresses, the vorticity on the interface concentrates, and the interface spirals around the alternating sign vortex centers to form a mushroom pattern. At higher Reynolds Number (based on circulation), an instability of the vortex cores has been observed. While time limitations of the apparatus prevent determination of a critical Reynolds Number, the lowest Reynolds Number this vortex instability has been observed at is 5000.

Scalar Transport in a Swirling Transverse Jet

The scalar transport in a swirling jet in a crossflow has been investigated in water tunnel experiments. The jet to freestream velocity ratio was varied from 4.9 to 11.1, and the jet swirl numbers ranged from 0 to 0.17. The jet exit Reynolds number was kept at 1.3 x 10 4 during the experiments. Planar laser-induced fluorescence was utilized to measure planar cross sections of the mean concentration field of the jet up to 68 jet diameters downstream of the exit. The jet penetration depth, half-value radius, and maximum concentration were determined from these concentration fields. For jets without swirl, measured cross-sectional mean concentration distributions have symmetric double-lobed kidney shapes that are consistent with the counter-rotating vortex pair that is known to exist in the far field of the jet. The addition of swirl causes the far-field distributions to become nonsymmetric, with one of the lobes increasing in size and the other decreasing, resulting in a comma shape. Swirl is also observed to decrease jet penetration but not to significantly affect the decay of maximum mean concentration for the range of swirl numbers investigated.

Fluid Dynamics Assessment of the VPCAR Water Recovery System in Partial and Microgravity

The Vapor Phase Catalytic Ammonia Removal (VPCAR) system is being developed to recycle water for future NASA Exploration Missions. Testing was recently conducted on NASA s C-9B Reduced Gravity Aircraft to determine the microgravity performance of a key component of the VPCAR water recovery system. Six flights were conducted to evaluate the fluid dynamics of the Wiped-Film Rotating Disk (WFRD) distillation component of the VPCAR system in microgravity, focusing on the water delivery method. The experiments utilized a simplified system to study the process of forming a thin film on a disk similar to that in the evaporator section of VPCAR. Fluid issues are present with the current configuration, and the initial alternative configurations were only partial successful in microgravity operation. The underlying causes of these issues are understood, and new alternatives are being designed to rectify the problems.

An Experimental Study of the Richtmyer‐Meshkov Instability in Microgravity

Abstract: Richtmyer‐Meshkov (RM) instability occurs when a planar interface separating two fluids of different density is impulsively accelerated in the direction of its normal. It is one of the most fundamental fluid instabilities and is of importance to the fields of astrophysics and inertial confinement fusion. Because RM instability experiments are normally carried out in shock tubes, where the generation of a sharp, well‐controlled interface between gases is difficult, there is a scarcity of good experimental results. The experiments presented here use a novel technique that circumvents many of the experimental difficulties that have previously limited the study of RM instability in shock tubes. In these experiments, the instability is generated incompressibly, by bouncing a rectangular tank containing two liquids off of a fixed spring. These experiments, which utilize PLIF flow visualization, yield time‐motion image sequences of the nonlinear development and transition to turbulence of the instability that are of a quality unattainable in shock tube experiments. Measurements obtained from these images, therefore, provide benchmark data for the evaluation of nonlinear models for the late‐time growth of the instability. Because the run time in these experiments is limited, new experiments in the NASA Glenn 2.2 second drop tower, capable of achieving longer run times, are currently under way.