The 4th International Conference on Matter and Radiation at Extremes (ICMRE 2019)

554 / 2019-03-20 15:40:24

MD simulation on similarity of Richtmyer-Meshkov instability at microscopic metal/gas interface under strong shock impacting

Richtmyer-Meshkov instability,extreme conditions,phenomenological similarity,self-similarity,molecular dynamics

Plenary track > Interface Instabilities at Extremes

The Richtmyer-Meshkov instability (RMI) under extreme shock conditions has important academic and engineering significance in the field of inertial confinement fusion (ICF). Present macroscopic hydrodynamic methods are difficult to be directly applied to RMI in extreme conditions due to the lack of proper models and parameters in such states, while the microscopic results obtained by molecular dynamics (MD) are also difficult to be applied directly in macroscopic scale simulation due to computational cost. To understand the connection between macroscopic and microscopic RMI, the RMI evolutions on copper-helium interface at different micro scales under different piston shock conditions (3~12 km/s) were simulated by the molecular dynamics method based on embedded-atom potential (EAM) models. Firstly, the RMI evolution obtained by MD was compared with available literature macroscopic results under similar conditions. Phenomenological similarity results between macroscopic and microscopic RMI is confirmed. The evolution histories of initial sinusoidal disturbance (amplitude/wave length ratio 0.05~0.2) at different incident shock wave speeds (8.0~16.8 km/s), different Atwood number (-0.556~-0.852) and different scales (7.3~290.0 nm) from RMI simulations were further compared and analyzed. It is found that all amplitude evolution curves behave with self-similarity under similar shock and boundary conditions, all main parameters vary in accordance with prediction of theoretical model. Although there exists some extent of discrepancy, similar amplitude evolution characteristics among results are obtained by microscopic and macroscopic simulations.