Rayleigh-Taylor Instability Experiments Examining Feedthrough Growth in an Incompressible, Convergent Geometry

We have performed Rayleigh-Taylor instability and feedthrough growth experiments in a 2D cylindrically convergent geometry by imploding gelatin cylinders with high-pressure gases. Instability growth was seeded by fabricating sinusoidal undulations on the outer surfaces of the cylinders, which were then observed during implosion with high-speed framing cameras. These experiments are the first to study feedthrough perturbation growth in an incompressible, convergent geometry. We compare the results to small-amplitude perturbation analysis and to a recent radiation-drive feedthrough experiment.