Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor instability

Scase, Matthew M.; Baldwin, Kyle A.; Hill, Richard J.A.

Abstract

The effect of rotation upon the classical Rayleigh-Taylor instability is considered. We consider a two-layer system with an axis of rotation that is perpendicular to the interface between the layers. In general we find that a wave mode’s growth rate may be reduced by rotation. We further show that in some cases, unstable axisymmetric wave modes may be stabilized by rotating the system above a critical rotation rate associated with the mode’s wavelength, the Atwood number and the flow’s aspect ratio.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Journal: Physical Review Fluids
• Electronic ISSN: 2469-990X
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2
• Issue: 2
• APA6 Citation: Scase, M. M., Baldwin, K. A., & Hill, R. J. (in press). Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor instability. Physical Review Fluids, 2(2), https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.2.024801
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.2.024801
• Publisher URL: https://journals.aps.org/prfluids/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevFluids.2.024801
• Copyright Statement: Copyright information regarding this work can be found at the following address: http://eprints.nottingh.../end_user_agreement.pdf