The capillary channel flow experiments on the International Space Station: experiment set-up and first results

This paper provides a description of the experiments on flow rate limitation in open capillary channel flow that were performed on board the International Space Station in 2011. Free surfaces of open capillary channels balance the pressure difference between the flow of the liquid in the channel and the ambient gas by decreasing their curvature in accordance with the Young-Laplace equation. A maximum or critical flow rate of the liquid in the channel is reached when the curvature of the free surface is no longer able to balance the pressure difference and gas is ingested into the the liquid. This phenomenon was observed using the setup described herein and critical flow rates determined for a range of channel lengths in three different channel geometries (parallel plates, groove, and wedge). This paper focuses on the description of the experiment but certain exemplary results are compared to predictions based on a preliminary one-dimensional model.

CANFIELD P.J.;  BRONOWICKI P.M.;  CHEN Y.;  KIEWIDT L.;  GRAH Aleksander;  KLATTE J.;  JENSON R.;  BLACKMORE W.;  WEISLOGEL M.M.;  DREYER M.E.; 

2013-09-16

SPRINGER

JRC72994

0723-4864,   

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013ExFl...54.1519C,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC72994,   

10.1007/s00348-013-1519-1,