Generation of Cylindrical Converging Shock Waves in a Conventional Shock Tube

Abstract

For ever two decades, the IUSTI laboratory has been known for its investigations [1] dealing with the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability (RMI). Experiments concerning the RMI have been performed in conventional shock tubes [2, 3, 4, 5]. All these experiments use a planar shock wave to generate the instability as perfectly as possible. However, the RMI also occurs in the spherical case where the convergence effects must be taken into account. As far as we know, no conventional (straight section) shock tube facility has been used to experimentally study the RMI in a spherical geometry.