Effect of initial conditions on two-dimensional Rayleigh–Taylor instability and transition to turbulence in planar blast-wave-driven systems

Perturbations on an interface driven by a strong blast wave grow in time due to a combination of Rayleigh–Taylor, Richtmyer–Meshkov, and decompression effects. In this paper, the results from a computational study of such a system under drive conditions to be attainable on the National Ignition Facility [E. M. Campbell, Laser Part. Beams 9, 209 (1991)] are presented. Using the multiphysics, adaptive mesh refinement, higher order Godunov Eulerian hydrocode, Raptor [L. H. Howell and J. A. Greenough, J. Comput. Phys. 184, 53 (2003)], the late nonlinear instability evolution for multiple amplitude and phase realizations of a variety of multimode spectral types is considered. Compressibility effects preclude the emergence of a regime of self-similar instability growth independent of the initial conditions by allowing for memory of the initial conditions to be retained in the mix-width at all times. The loss of transverse spectral information is demonstrated, however, along with the existence of a quasi-self-similar regime over short time intervals. Certain aspects of the initial conditions, including the rms amplitude, are shown to have a strong effect on the time to transition to the quasi-self-similar regime.