K - L turbulence model for the self-similar growth of the Rayleigh-Taylor and Richtmyer-Meshkov instabilities

A turbulence model is developed to described the self-similar growth of the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) and Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instabilities. The model describes the dominant eddies in the mixing zone with evolutionary equations for their characteristic dimension L and energy per unit mass K≡V2∕2. The equations are based on the successful buoyancy-drag models for RT and RM flows, but constructed only with local parameters so that it can be applied to multidimensional flows with multiple shells of materials. The model has several unknown coefficients that are determined by comparing analytical and numerical solutions with RT and RM experiments.