title: Experimental investigation of a strongly shocked gas bubble.
abstract: A free-falling, spherical, soap-film bubble filled with argon is subjected to a planar M=2.88 shock in atmospheric nitrogen; vorticity is deposited on the surface of the bubble during shock interaction, and the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability ensues. The geometrical development of the shocked bubble is diagnosed with laser sheet imaging and a planar slice showing two cross sections of both the major vortex ring and a secondary vortex ring is revealed experimentally for the first time. Quantitative measurements of the experimental data include the vortex velocity defect, and subsequent circulation calculations, along with a new set of relevant length scales. The shock wave strength, leading to a post-shock compressible regime, allows the study of the instability development in a regime between low Mach number shock tube experiments and high Mach number laser driven experiments that has not been investigated previously.
authors.affiliation: Engineering Physics Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1500 Engineering Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
authors.forename: Devesh
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ranjan
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Anderson
authors.forename: Jason
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Oakley
authors.forename: Riccardo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bonazza