Rayleigh-Taylor instability of cylindrical jets with radial motion

Rayleigh-Taylor instability of an interface between fluids with different densities subjected to acceleration normal to itself has interested researchers for almost a century. The classic analyses of a flat interface by Rayleigh and Taylor have shown that this type of instability depends on the direction of acceleration and the density differences of the two fluids. Plesset later analyzed the stability of a spherically symmetric flows (and a spherical interface) and concluded that the instability also depends on the velocity of the interface as well as the direction and magnitude of radial acceleration. The instability induced by radial motion in cylindrical systems seems to have been neglected by previous researchers. This paper analyzes the Rayleigh-Taylor type of instability for a cylindrical surface with radial motions. The results of the analysis show that, like the spherical case, the radial velocity also plays an important role. As an application, the example of a liquid jet surface in an Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) reactor design is analyzed. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science S.A.