title: Production of reproducible Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities.
abstract: A device is described that excites individual modes of the standing wave spectrum for surface waves on water in a water tank of rectangular cross section. By synchronizing the downward acceleration of the tank with the standing wave on the water, Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities with reproducible characteristics are excited at the air-water interface. By controlling the width of the tank, the fluid motion is made to be largely two dimensional. The reproducibility of the phenomenon and the two-dimensional character of the flow make it possible, for the first time, to compare details of the wave profile with results predicted with the two-dimensional models of Emmons, Chang, and Watson.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada V6T 1W5.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Popil
authors.forename: F L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Curzon