Approximate evaluation of viscous effects in the Rayleigh-Taylor instability

The effects of viscosity in the Rayleigh--Taylor instability are very important in many instances of interest but, although they have been investigated in some simple cases, the extensive algebraic complexities that are involved in the treatment of the problem tend to becloud the analysis and prevent generalizations of the results. In the paper a simple approximate method which improves a previous one by Plesset and Whipple is discussed. The viscous effects are accounted in an intuitive and transparent way, and can be easily estimated. The results are compared with exact calculations showing good agreement. For this purpose a method of analysis of the exact dispersion relation is developed, which circumvents most of the algebraic complications of the usual procedures. Both the approximate method and the novel treatment of the exact dispersion relation can be generalized to other problems of the same family