The Rayleigh-Taylor instability is investigated in a material with a shear modulus mu and yield stress sigma(0). Incompressible experiments are conducted with constant and impulsive acceleration histories g(t) using a fully characterized material. Two dimensional (2D) perturbations are found to be stabilized for wave number k > rho g/2 mu and initial amplitude h(0) < sigma(0)/rho g where rho is the density. The stability region is larger for 3D perturbations. Unstable modes are found to grow classically during the acceleration phase, but they can recover elastically while coasting. S0031-9007(97)05230-7. References: 17
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