RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR INSTABILITY - EXPERIMENTS WITH IMAGE-ANALYSIS

Rayleigh-Taylor instability is investigated in the laboratory using a simple apparatus of novel design to set up the unstable initial conditions. Visualisation techniques give a qualitative view of the development of the instability. Quantitative measurements are obtained through digital image analysis. Of primary interest is the evolution of the velocity field. Measurements are made over a two dimensional slice of the flow using an efficient, high-resolution particle tracking technique. This technique is described and its strengths and limitations are discussed in comparison with traditional measurement techniques. The visualisations and velocity measurements are compared with the experimental and numerical results of previous workers.