A theoretical framework to study linear and nonlinear Richtmyer-Meshkov instability (RMI) is presented. This instability typically develops when an incident shock crosses a corrugated material interface separating two fluids with different thermodynamic properties. Because the contact surface is rippled, the transmitted and reflected wavefronts are also corrugated, and some circulation is generated at the material boundary. The velocity circulation is progressively modified by the sound wave field radiated by the wavefronts, and ripple growth at the contact surface reaches a constant asymptotic normal velocity when the shocks/rarefactions are distant enough. The instability growth is driven by two effects: an initial deposition of velocity circulation at the material interface by the corrugated shock fronts and its subsequent variation in time due to the sonic field of pressure perturbations radiated by the deformed shocks. First, an exact analytical model to determine the asymptotic linear growth rate is presented and its dependence on the governing parameters is briefly discussed. Instabilities referred to as RM-like, driven by localized non-uniform vorticity, also exist; they are either initially deposited or supplied by external sources. Ablative RMI and its stabilization mechanisms are discussed as an example. When the ripple amplitude increases and becomes comparable to the perturbation wavelength, the instability enters the nonlinear phase and the perturbation velocity starts to decrease. An analytical model to describe this second stage of instability evolution is presented within the limit of incompressible and irrotational fluids, based on the dynamics of the contact surface circulation. RMI in solids and liquids is also presented via molecular dynamics simulations for planar and cylindrical geometries, where we show the generation of vorticity even in viscid materials.

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A two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulation code CAP has been developed in order to investigate the dynamics of hydrogenic pellet ablation in magnetized plasmas throughout their temporal evolution. One of the properties of the code is that it treats the solid-to-gas phase change at the pellet surface without imposing artificial boundary conditions there, as done in previous ablation models. The simulation includes multispecies atomic processes, mainly molecular dissociation and thermal ionization in the ablation flow beyond the pellet, with a kinetic heat flux model. It was found that ionization causes the formation of a quasistationary shock front in the supersonic region of the ablation flow, followed by a ''second'' sonic surface farther out. Anisotropic heating, due to the directionality of the magnetic field, contributes to a nonuniform ablation ͑recoil͒ pressure distribution over the pellet surface. Since the shear stress can exceed the yield strength of the solid for a sufficiently high heat flux, the solid pellet can be fluidized and flattened into a ''pancake'' shape while the pellet is ablating and losing mass. The effect of pellet deformation can shorten the pellet lifetime almost 3ϫ from that assuming the pellet remains rigid and stationary during ablation.

Hydrodynamic instabilities, such as the Rayleigh–Taylor (R–T) instability, play a critical role in inertial confinement fusion as they finally cause fuel-pusher mixing that potentially quenches thermonuclear ignition. Good understanding of the instabilities is necessary to limit the mixing within a tolerable level. A series of experiments has been conducted on the GEKKO XII laser facility [C. Yamanaka et al., IEEE J. Quantum Electron. QE-17, 1639 (1981)] to measure hydrodynamic instabilities in planar foils directly irradiated by 0.53 μm laser light. It has been found that (1) the imprint is reasonably explained by an imprint model based on the equation of motion with the pressure perturbation smoothed by the cloudy-day effect, and (2) the experimental R–T growth rate is significantly reduced from the classical growth rate due probably to ablative stabilization enhanced by nonlocal heat transport.

As the finalization of the hydrogen experiment towards the deuterium phase, the exploration of the best performance of the hydrogen plasma was intensively performed in the Large Helical Device (LHD). High ion and electron temperatures, Ti, Te, of more than 6 keV were simultaneously achieved by superimposing the high power electron cyclotron resonance heating (ECH) on the neutral beam injection (NBI) heated plasma. Although flattening of the ion temperature profile in the core region was observed during the discharges, one could avoid the degradation by increasing the electron density. Another key parameter to present plasma performance is an averaged beta value . The high regime around 4 % was extended to an order of magnitude lower than the earlier collisional regime. Impurity behaviour in hydrogen discharges with NBI heating was also classified with the wide range of edge plasma parameters. Existence of no impurity accumulation regime where the high performance plasma is maintained with high power heating > 10 MW was identified. Wide parameter scan experiments suggest that the toroidal rotation and the turbulence are the candidates for expelling impurities from the core region.