Richtmyer-Meshkov instability of a three-dimensional SF_{6}-air interface with a minimum-surface feature.

The Richmyer-Meshkov instability of a three-dimensional (3D) SF_{6}-air single-mode interface with a minimum-surface feature is investigated experimentally. The interface produced by the soap film technique is subjected to a planar shock and the evolution of the shocked interface is captured by time-resolved schlieren photography. Different from the light-heavy single-mode case, a phase inversion occurs in the shock-interface interaction and a bubblelike structure is observed behind the shocked interface, which may be ascribed to the difference in pressure perturbation at different planes. The superimposition of spikelike forward-moving jets forms a complex structure, indicating a distinctly 3D effect. Quantitatively, it is also found that the instability at the symmetry plane grows much slower than the prediction of two-dimensional linear model, but matches the extended 3D linear and nonlinear models accounting for the curvature effects. Therefore, the opposite curvatures of the 3D interface are beneficial for suppressing the growth of the instability.