Large eddy simulation of high atwood number rayleigh-taylor mixing

Abstract

Large eddy simulation of Rayleigh-Taylor instability at high Atwood numbers is performed using recently developed, kinetic energy-conserving, non-dissipative, fully-implicit, finite volume algorithm. The algorithm does not rely on the Boussinesq assumption. It also allows density and viscosity to vary. No interface capturing mechanism is requried. Because of its advanced features, unlike the pure incompressible ones, it does not suffer from the loss of physical accuracy at high Atwood numbers. Many diagnostics including local mole fractions, bubble and spike growth rates, mixing efficiencies, Taylor micro-scales, Reynolds stresses and their anisotropies are computed to analyze the high Atwood number effects. The density ratio dependence for the ratio of spike to bubble heights is also studied. Results show that higher Atwood numbers are characterized by increasing ratio of spike to bubble growth rates, higher speeds of bubble and especially spike fronts, faster development in instability, similarity in late time mixing values, and mixing asymmetry.