Symmetry and conservation principles of evolution of general Rayleigh-Taylor mixing fronts

Abstract

A theory determining the evolution of general Rayleigh-Taylor mixing fronts is established to reproduce firstly all of the documented experiments conducted for diverse acceleration histories and all density ratios. The theory is established in terms of the fundamental conservation and symmetry principles, with special consideration given to the symmetry breaking of the density fields occurring in actual flows. The results reveal the sensitivity/insensitivity of the evolution of a mixing front neighbouring light/heavy fluid to the degree of symmetry breaking, and also explain the distinct evolutions in two experiments with the same configurations.