Development of Rayleigh Taylor Instability at Various Atwood Numbers—A Review

Abstract

Rayleigh Taylor instability has been investigated numerically and experimentally by many researchers for more than a century for studying various properties. The unstable interface between the two fluids of varying density with the fluid of higher density being superposed over the fluid with lower density has been studied using various experiments and numerical models. In the recent decades the analysis was more focused on internal conditions, properties and turbulence as the experiments could be designed with more precision and advanced technologies. Lot of research has been done at varying Atwood number which is ratio of difference in the densities of fluids to the sum of fluid densities. This phenomenon happens on the surface of an expanding bubble deep-water, in nuclear explosion, astrophysics. In this review, authors have discussed the understanding of the instability and research done by some of the researchers and also have discussed some of topics which could be investigated further.