M. Kassemi¹, Y. Wang², S. Barsi^1,3, B.T.F. Chung²

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.2, No.1, pp. 27-46, 2006, DOI:10.3970/fdmp.2006.002.027

Abstract Microgravity experiments, especially materials processing experiments, have often been hampered by presence of unwanted bubbles. In this work, the effect of thermocapillary convection generated by a bubble on the Bridgman growth of a dilute binary alloy in microgravity is investigated numerically. The model is based on the quasi-steady Navier-Stokes equations for the fluid flow in the melt coupled with the conservation equations for transport of energy and species in the growth ampoule. Numerical results indicate three different growth regimes based on the distance between the bubble and the growth interface: a diffusion dominated regime that is separated from a well-mixed… More >

M. Sekhon¹, N. Armour¹, S. Dost^1,2

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.9, No.4, pp. 331-351, 2013, DOI:10.3970/fdmp.2013.009.331

Abstract Liquid Phase Diffusion (LPD) growth of Si_xGe_1-x single crystals has been numerically simulated under zero gravity. The objective was to examine growth rate and silicon concentration distribution in the LPD grown crystals under diffusion dominated mass transport prior to the planned LPD space experiments on the International Space Station (ISS). Since we are interested in predicting growth rate and crystal composition, the gravitational fluctuation of the ISS (g-jitter) was neglected and the gravity level was taken as zero for simplicity.
A fixed grid approach has been utilized for the simulation. An integrated top-level solver was developed in OpenFOAM to carry… More >

A.H. Ahadi¹, M.Z. Saghir¹

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.8, No.4, pp. 397-422, 2012, DOI:10.3970/fdmp.2012.008.397

Abstract The numerical simulations of a thermodiffusion experiment in atmospheric pressure binary mixtures of water and isopropanol subject to micro-vibrations at reduced gravity are presented. The vibrations are induced on board ISS and FOTON-M3 due to many different reasons like crew activity, spacecraft docking or operating other experiments, etc. The effects of micro-gravity vibration were investigated in detail on all of the mixture properties. The influences of different cavity sizes as well as different signs of Soret coefficients in the solvent were considered. In this paper, the thermodiffusion experiment was subjected to two different g-jitter vibrations on board ISS and FOTON-M3… More >

Sayavur I. Bakhtiyarov¹, Dennis A. Siginer²

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.4, No.2, pp. 99-112, 2008, DOI:10.3970/fdmp.2008.004.099

Abstract Levitation of liquid bodies against gravity is a contactless confinement process appropriate for manufacturing very pure materials. A variety of levitation techniques have been developed over the last few decades, such as aerodynamic, acoustic, electrostatic, microwave, and electromagnetic levitations. More recently, a new generation of novel techniques, essentially combinations of the established primary techniques, has been successfully introduced. Examples are acoustic-electric, aerodynamic-acoustic and acoustic-electromagnetic. The purpose of this series of papers in three parts, Bakhtiyarov and Siginer (2007a,b), is to review the advances in electromagnetic levitation (EML) since its introduction as a containerless melting technique, and a tool for the… More >

A. Ovcharova¹, N.Stankous²

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.3, No.4, pp. 349-356, 2007, DOI:10.3970/fdmp.2007.003.349

Abstract We consider a deformation of a thin film which is hanging between two solid flat walls under thermal load action. A two-dimensional model is applied to describe the motion of thin layers of viscous nonisothermal liquid under microgravity conditions. The model is based on the Navier-Stokes equations. A numerical analysis of the influence of thermal loads on the deformation and break of freely hanging thin films has been carried out. The mutual influence of capillary and thermo-capillary forces on thin film free surface position has been shown. The results of model problem solutions are presented. More >

A. Laverón-Simavilla¹, V. Lapuerta¹, J. Rodríguez¹, M. A. González¹

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.3, No.4, pp. 339-348, 2007, DOI:10.3970/fdmp.2007.003.339

Abstract A cylindrical liquid bridge supported between two circular-shaped disks in isorotation is considered. The effect of an offset between the rotation axis and the axis of the two supporting disks (eccentricity) on the stability of the liquid bridge is investigated. In a previous work a numerical method used to determine the stability limit for different values of eccentricity was validated comparing these results with analytical and experimental results for small eccentricity values, recovering the same behavior. In this work we use the numerical method to extend the analysis to large values of the eccentricity, finding a change in the bifurcation… More >

Y. Yan¹, K. Jules², M. Z. Saghir¹

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.3, No.3, pp. 231-246, 2007, DOI:10.3970/fdmp.2007.003.231

Abstract Fluid science research including thermal diffusion in fluids benefits from the quiescent low-gravity environment provided by the International Space Station (ISS). However, residual gravities (or g-jitters) aboard the ISS impact the overall environment in which experiments are being performed. The impact of these residual gravities needs to be assessed to ensure that they are appropriately accounted for when results are being reported for experiments performed onboard the ISS. In this paper we study the thermal diffusion process in a ternary mixture of n-butane, dodecane and methane. Measured data from the Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS) acceleration system onboard the ISS… More >

Akira Hirata¹

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.3, No.3, pp. 203-230, 2007, DOI:10.3970/fdmp.2007.003.203

Abstract This article is a summary of author's typical research works (over the last four decades) on interphase transport phenomena in the presence of interfacial fluid motion and surface tension gradients on liquid-fluid interfaces, and related applications to single crystal growth and microgravity sciences. A unified theory for momentum, heat and mass transfer on liquid-fluid and solid-fluid interfaces is proposed, which takes into account interface mobility. It is shown that interface contamination and turbulence can be well explained, respectively, by suppression and enhancement of the interfacial velocity induced by surface tension gradients. Transport phenomena on solid spheres, liquid drops and gas… More >

Y. Yan¹, V. Shevtsova², M. Z. Saghir¹

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.1, No.4, pp. 315-328, 2005, DOI:10.3970/fdmp.2005.001.315

Abstract Convection has a major impact on diffusion in fluid mixtures either on the Earth or in the microgravity condition. G-jitters, as the primary source that induces the vibrational convection in space laboratories, should be studied thoroughly in order to improve the diffusion-dominated fluid science experiments. In this paper we consider the effect of g-jitters on thermal diffusion. The mixture water-isopropanol (90:10 wt%) bounded in a cubic cell is simulated with a lateral heating and various vibration conditions. The fluid flow, concentration and temperature distributions are thoroughly analyzed for different g-jitter scenarios. It is shown that the overall effect of vibrations… More >

N.I. Wakayama¹, D.C. Yin², J.W. Qi³

FDMP-Fluid Dynamics & Materials Processing, Vol.1, No.2, pp. 153-170, 2005, DOI:10.3970/fdmp.2005.001.153

Abstract The production of crystals of adequate size and high quality is the "bottleneck'' for three-dimensional structure analysis of protein crystals. In this work, in order to shed additional light on the (still controversial) beneficial effect of microgravity on crystal growth, we focus on recent advanced experimental and theoretical research about the effects of buoyancy-driven convection on protein crystallization. In the light of the numerical studies the following major outcomes can be highlighted: (1) when the crystal size exceeds several dozens of µm, buoyancy-driven convection dominates solute transport near the growing crystal and the crystal growth rate becomes larger than that… More >