Experiment to study the effects of spacecraft accelerations on solutal and thermo-solutal convection

Conference · Tue Dec 31 00:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:500882

Ramachandran, N ^[1]

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1. Universities Space Research Association, Huntsville, AL (United States)

An experiment to study the effects of spacecraft accelerations (residual gravity and jitter) on solute diffusion and thermo-solutal convection is presented. The experiment focuses on two phenomena of interest to crystal growers and fluid dynamists, namely, the transport of concentration that approaches purely diffusion limited conditions in low gravity, and the effect of a temperature gradient on the developed solute profile. Ground experiments and modeling studies are discussed and a space experiment concept that can be used to test the results is presented. Optical interferometry is used to delineate the subtle effects of onboard accelerations on solute diffusion and a shadowgraph technique is utilized to discern fluid motion. The proposed experiment is a follow-up of the thermal diffusion demonstration experiment (Chuck) that flew as the science payload of an active vibration isolation system called STABLE on STS-73 in Oct. 1995.

• OSTI ID: 500882
• Report Number(s): CONF-960848-; ISBN 0-8194-2197-9; TRN: IM9732%%110
• Resource Relation: Conference: Denver `96: 1. conference on space processing of materials, at SPIE International Society for Optical Engineering (SPIE) annual international symposium on optical science, engineering, and instrumentation, Denver, CO (United States), 4-9 Aug 1996; Other Information: PBD: 1996; Related Information: Is Part Of Space processing of materials; Ramachandran, N. [ed.] [Universities Space Research Association, Huntsville, AL (United States)]; PB: 411 p.; Proceedings/SPIE, Volume 2809
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIALS
CRYSTAL GROWTH
SPACE FLIGHT
WEIGHTLESSNESS
SOLUTES
EXPERIMENT PLANNING
DIFFUSION