Analysis of Rayleigh-Taylor Instability Part 1: Bubble and Spike Count

摘要

The use of high-performance computers to simulate hydrodynamic instabilities has resulted in the generation of massive amounts of data. One aspect of the analysis of this data involves the identification and characterization of coherent structures known as 'bubbles' and 'spikes'. This can be a challenge as there is no precise definition of these structures, and the large size of the data, as well as its distributed nature, precludes any extensive experimentation with different definitions and analysis algorithms. In this report, we describe the use of image processing techniques to identify and count bubbles and spikes in the Rayleigh-Taylor instability, which occurs when an initially perturbed interface between a heavier fluid and a lighter fluid is allowed to grow under the influence of gravity. We analyze data from two simulations, one a large-eddy simulation with 30 terabytes of analysis data, and the other a direct numerical simulation with 80 terabytes of analysis data. We consider different techniques to first convert the three-dimensional data to two dimensions and then count the structures of interest in the two-dimensional data. Our analysis of the bubble and spike counts over time indicates that there are four distinct regimes in the process of the mixing of the two fluids, starting from the initial linear stage, followed by the non-linear stage with weak turbulence, the mixing transition stage, and the final stage of strong turbulence. We also show that our results are relatively insensitive to the parameters used in our algorithms.