TY - JOUR AB - Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to investigate, numerically, the effects of the Prandtl number on the mixing process in two‐dimensional Rayleigh‐Taylor instability of incompressible and miscible fluids.Design/methodology/approach– The simulations are carried out based on a double‐distribution‐function lattice Boltzmann method in which the Prandtl number can be adjusted.Findings– The simulations reveal that the mixing‐zone grows inversely with increasing Prandtl number, but the processes of Rayleigh‐Taylor instability are nearly identical in terms of a dimensionless time as the Prandtl number ranges from 0.1 to 10. The symmetric property of the mixing‐zone is also studied, which is found to be closely dependent on the symmetry of the initial perturbations.Originality/value– The results here show that the growth of the mixing‐zone is related to the Prandtl number, whereas most previous studies have been focused on the relationship between the growth of the mixing zone and time with a constant Prandtl number. VL - 23 IS - 1 SN - 0961-5539 DO - 10.1108/09615531311289178 UR - https://doi.org/10.1108/09615531311289178 AU - Liu Gaojie AU - Guo Zhaoli ED - X. Li ED - N. Massarotti ED - P. Nithiarasu PY - 2013 Y1 - 2013/01/01 TI - Effects of Prandtl number on mixing process in miscible Rayleigh‐Taylor instability: A lattice Boltzmann study T2 - International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat & Fluid Flow PB - Emerald Group Publishing Limited SP - 176 EP - 188 Y2 - 2024/04/19 ER -