Related Experiment Video
Updated: Mar 15, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
Nonequilibrium thermohydrodynamic effects on the Rayleigh-Taylor instability in compressible flows
Huilin Lai1,2, Aiguo Xu1,3, Guangcai Zhang1
1National Key Laboratory of Computational Physics, Institute of Applied Physics and Computational Mathematics, P. O. Box 8009-26, Beijing 100088, China.
Abstract:
The effects of compressibility on Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) are investigated by inspecting the interplay between thermodynamic and hydrodynamic nonequilibrium phenomena (TNE, HNE, respectively) via a discrete Boltzmann model. Two effective approaches are presented, one tracking the evolution of the local TNE effects and the other focusing on the evolution of the mean temperature of the fluid, to track the complex interfaces separating the bubble and the spike regions of the flow. It is found that both the compressibility effects and the global TNE intensity show opposite trends in the initial and the later stages of the RTI. Compressibility delays the initial stage of RTI and accelerates the later stage. Meanwhile, the TNE characteristics are generally enhanced by the compressibility, especially in the later stage. The global or mean thermodynamic nonequilibrium indicators provide physical criteria to discriminate between the two stages of the RTI.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Irrotational Flow
Turbulent Flow
Navier–Stokes Equations
Poiseuille's Law and Reynolds Number
Laminar and Turbulent Flow
Euler's Equations of Motion

