It would be signi cantly easier to design uid systems for spacecraft if the uid phases behaved similarly to those on earth. In this research an open 15:8 wedge- sectioned channel is employed to separate bubbles from a two-phase ow in a micro- gravity environment. The bubbles appear to rise in the channel and coalesce with the free surface in much the same way as would bubbles in a terrestrial environ- ment, only the combined e ects of surface tension, wetting, and conduit geometry replace the role of buoyancy. The host liquid is drawn along the channel by a pump and noncondensible gas bubbles are injected into it near the channel vertex at the channel inlet. Control parameters include bubble volume, bubble frequency, liq- uid volumetric ow rate, and channel length. The asymmetrically con ned bubbles are driven in the cross- ow direction by capillary forces until they at least become inscribed within the section or until they come in contact with the free surface, whereupon they usually coalesce and leave the ow. The merging of bubbles en- hances, but does not guarantee, the latter. The experiments are performed aboard the International Space Station as a subset of the Capillary Channel Flow experi- ments. The ight hardware is commanded remotely and continuously from ground stations during the tests and an extensive array of experiments is conducted identi- fying numerous bubble ow regimes and regime transitions depending on the ratio and magnitude of the gas and liquid volumetric ow rates. The breadth of the pub- licly available experiments is conveyed herein primarily by narrative and by regime maps, where transitions are approximated by simple expressions immediately useful for the purposes of design and deeper analysis.
Related URLs:
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp?R=20160001341