Stagnation-Flow Models
Multiphase Heat Transfer and Fluid Flow
Professor Roger H. Rangel
Visiting Professor: Carlos Torres
Wall-Drop And Drop-Drop Interactions And Deformations In Microgravity
The management of fluids in microgravity represents on the most serious
challenges to the designers of many important spacecraft elements including
liquid fuel tanks, cryogen storage tanks and water recycling systems. One of the
most serious limitations to solving these problems has been the lack of reliable
analytical tools for the prediction of fluid behavior in the low gravity
environment of space systems. Multiphase flow, including liquid-gas, liquid-liquid,
liquid-solid, and gas-solid combinations are present in a variety of power
systems, life support systems, fluid transfer operations, and many others. In
the low gravity environment, surface tension and inertial forces take a more
predominant role than they do on earth-based systems and thus produce important
qualitative and quantitative changes in flow behavior.
One such problem involving multiphase flows is tankage, defined as the means of
containing and transporting liquids such as fuels, cryogens, biological wastes,
and water (Weislogel, 1998). Important and recurring problem areas are liquid
acquisition, tank pressure and thermal control and mass gauging. Most of these
involve the fundamental problem of static and dynamic interface behavior that
plays an important role in determining the location and distribution of a liquid
in a tank in the absence of gravity.
Our understanding of the dynamic behavior of deformable fluid masses is
necessarily preceded by our knowledge of particle behavior in dispersed
multiphase flows. The interaction of dispersed particle flows with the walls of
the container and our characterization of this behavior provides an introduction
to the more complex phenomenon of deformable mass behavior and the interaction
between fluid blobs among themselves and with the walls of the container.
References
Figures
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This page has been last updated by JMS 2/11/2004