A core-collapse, or Type II, supernova occurs in massive stars when they can no longer sustain fusion. For most of their lives, stars produce energy by fusing hydrogen into helium. Eventually, the hydrogen runs out and the core contracts until it reaches temperatures hot enough to cause the helium to fuse into carbon. This process repeats through to heavier elements, producing a pre-collapse star with onion-like layers of elements with the heaviest elements near the center. When the core consists mostly of nickel and iron, fusion will come to an end, and the core’s next collapse will trigger the supernova. When astronomers observed Supernova 1987A, the closest supernova in more than 300 years, models predicted that the onion-like layers of the supernova would persist after the explosion. But observations showed core materials reaching the surface much faster than predicted, suggesting that turbulent mixing might be carrying heavier elements outward. The images above show several time steps of a 2D simulation of this type of supernova. In the wake of the expanding shock wave, the core materials form fingers that race outward, mixing the fusion remnants. Hydrodynamically speaking, this is an example of the Richtmyer-Meshkov instability, in which a shock wave generates mixing between fluid layers of differing densities. (Image credit: K. Kifonidis et al.; see also B. Remington)
Tag: shockwave
Shuttle Re-Entry
Complicated shock wave patterns envelope vehicles traveling at supersonic and hypersonic speeds. A shock wave is essentially a very tiny region–only a few mean free path lengths wide–over which flow conditions, including density, pressure, velocity, and temperature, change drastically. The image above shows a model of the Space Shuttle at a re-entry-like, high angle of attack at around Mach 20 in one of NASA Langley’s historic helium tunnels. The eerie glow outlining the shock structures around the model is a result of electron-beam fluorescence. In this flow visualization technique, a beam of high-energy electrons is swept over the model, causing the gas molecules to fluoresce according to temperature. (Photo credit: NASA Langley)
Bullet Through a Bubble
A bullet passes through a soap bubble in the schlieren photo above. The schlieren optical technique is sensitive to changes in the refractive index and, since a fluid’s refractive index changes with density, permits the visualization of shock waves. A strong curved bow shock is visible in front of the bullet as well as weaker lines marking additional shocks waves around the bullet. Impressively, the bullet’s passage is so fast (and the photo’s timing so perfect) that there are no imperfections or signs of bursting in the soap bubble. The photo’s caption suggests that the bubble may be filled with multiple gases. If they are unmixed and of differing densities, this may be the source of the speckling and plume-like structures inside the bubble. Incidentally, if anyone out there has high-speed schlieren video of a bullet passing through a soap bubble, I would love to see it. (Photo credit: H. Edgerton and K. Vandiver)
Start Your Rocket Engine
When supersonic flow is achieved through a wind tunnel or rocket nozzle, the flow is said to have “started”. For this to happen, a shock wave must pass through, leaving supersonic flow in its wake. The series of images above show a shock wave passing through an ideal rocket nozzle contour. Flow is from the top to bottom. As the shock wave passes through the nozzle expansion, its interaction with the walls causes flow separation at the wall. This flow separation artificially narrows the rocket nozzle (see images on right), which hampers the acceleration of the air to its designed Mach number. It also causes turbulence and pressure fluctuations that can impact performance. (Image credit: B. Olson et al.)
Shocked Interfaces
The Richtmyer-Meshkov instability occurs when two fluids of differing density are hit by a shock wave. The animation above shows a cylinder of denser gas (white) in still air (black) before being hit with a Mach 1.2 shock wave. The cylinder is quickly accelerated and flattened, with either end spinning up to form the counter-rotating vortices that dominate the instability. As the vortices spin, the fluids along the interface shear against one another, and new, secondary instabilities, like the wave-like Kelvin-Helmholtz instability, form along the edges. The two gases mix quickly. This instability is of especial interest for the application of inertial confinement fusion. During implosion, the shell material surrounding the fuel layer is shock-accelerated; since mixing of the shell and fuel is undesirable, researchers are interested in understanding how to control and prevent the instability. (Image credit: S. Shankar et al.)The APS Division of Fluid Dynamics conference begins this Sunday in Pittsburgh. I’ll be giving a talk about FYFD Sunday evening at 5:37pm in Rm 306/307. I hope to see some of you there!
Schlieren in Flight
Schlieren photography is a common method of visualizing shock waves in wind tunnel experiments, but it’s much harder to pull off for aircraft in the sky. This video from NASA shows off some stunning work out of NASA Dryden capturing schlieren video of shock waves from a F-15B aircraft at Mach 1.38. You’ll notice that shock waves extend off the nose, wings, tail, and other parts of the airplane and extend well beyond the camera’s field of view. It’s these shock waves hitting the ground level that causes distinctive sonic booms. These tests are part of NASA’s on-going research into minimizing the effects of sonic boom so that civilian supersonic flight over land is feasible in the future. When the U.S. government shutdown ends, you’ll be able to learn more about this work at NASA Dryden’s GASPS page. (Video credit: NASA Dryden)
Shock Trains
In compressible flows, shock waves are singularities, a tiny distance across which the density, temperature, and pressure of a fluid change suddenly and discontinuously. In this video, there is a wedge at the top and bottom of the frame and a Pitot probe roughly in the center. Flow is left to right and is initially subsonic. Once Mach 6 flow is established in the wind tunnel, a series of shock waves and expansion fans appear as light and dark lines in this schlieren video. Oblique shocks extend from the sharp tip of each wedge and interfere to create a normal shock in front of the Pitot probe. The air that passes through the normal shock is subsonic to the right of the shock, whereas air that goes through the oblique shocks remains supersonic. The fainter lines further to the right are weaker shock waves and expansion fans that reflect off the walls and probe. They exist to continue turning the airflow around the probe and to equalize conditions between different regions. (Video credit: C. Mai et al.)
Shocking Instabilities
The Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability occurs when the interface between two fluids of different density is impulsively accelerated – usually by the passage of a shock wave. The image above shows a thin layer of gaseous sulfur hexafluoride embedded in air. Each vertical line, from left to right, shows the distortion of the two fluids at subsequent time steps after a Mach 1.2 shock wave passes through the gases. The interface’s initial waviness grows into mushroom-like shapes that mix the two gases together, ultimately leading to turbulence. Scenarios involving the RM instability include supersonic combustion ramjet engines, supernovas, and inertial confinement fusion. The RM instability is closely related to Rayleigh-Taylor instability and shares a similar morphology. (Photo credit: D. Ranjan et al.)
Rocket Sonic Boom
Originally posted: 22 July 2010 This video of the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory’s launch is such a favorite of mine that it was part of the original inspiration for FYFD and was the very first video I posted. Watch closely as the Atlas V rocket climbs. At 1:51 you’ll see a rainbow-like cloud in upper right corner of the screen. This effect is created by sunlight shining through ice crystals of the cloud. A couple seconds later you see pressure waves from the rocket propagate outward and destroy the rainbow effect by re-aligning the ice crystals. Just after that comes the announcement that the vehicle has gone supersonic. The atmospheric conditions of the launch happened to be just right to make those pressure waves coming off the rocket visible just before they coalesced into a leading shockwave. (Video credit: B. Tomlinson)
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SpaceShipTwo Lights It Up
Monday morning Virgin Galactic and their partners at Scaled Composites reached a new milestone in their commercial sub-orbital spaceflight program, firing SpaceShipTwo’s main engine for the first time and accelerating to supersonic speeds. The upper image shows hints of Mach diamonds, formed by a series of shock waves and expansions, in its exhaust. This is very common for rockets since most have a fixed geometry, and, by extension, a fixed Mach number and exhaust pressure. (Photo credits: Virgin Galactic and Mars Scientific)
