Three-Dimensional Simulations of a Shock-Gas Column Interaction

In this paper, we present three-dimensional simulation results of the interaction between a planar shock and a finite-diameter, cylindrical column of dense gas. This column of gas is initially inclined at an angle 𝛼0 with respect to the shock. After passage of the shock, a counter-rotating vortex pair is observed in the cross-sectional plane through the column midpoint. In addition, a shear driven instability, known as the shock-driven Kelvin-Helmholtz instability(SDKHI) develops on the column surface. In this study, we investigate the three-dimensional effects of the SDKHI with a focus on two parameters; the initial column angle (𝛼0 = 10°, 20°, 30°) and the Mach number (𝑀1 = 1.4, 1.7, 2.0). Comparison is also made to results from previous two-dimensional studies on the interaction of a shock with an inclined, finite width curtain. Simulations were performed with FIESTA, a GPU accelerated compressible flow solver developed at the University of New Mexico.