A low-gravity "Gift for the future"
| Tweet |  |
Space Science News home
A low-gravity "Gift for the future"
Scientists discuss results from the
U.S. Microgravity Payload 4
Feb.
19, 1999: A peek at a "gift for the future" was
presented recently as scientists discussed the results of the
fourth U.S. Microgravity Payload (USMP-4) which flew Nov. 19-Dec.
4, 1997.
"Overall it was a very successful mission," said Dr. Ed Ethridge, the assistant mission scientist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Etheridge who chaired the L+1 - launch-plus-one-year - results conference to be held at NASA/Marshall. This brought the USMP-4 science team together for the last time.
December 3: Mars Polar Lander nears touchdown  December 2: What next, Leonids? November 30: Polar Lander Mission Overview November 30: Learning how to make a clean sweep in space |
Anticipating the benefits from USMP-4's research, mission manager Sherwood Anderson said, as the mission ended in 1997, "My gift to my children is the research we're doing today."
USMP-4 had two principal elements, a cluster of four large experiment devices mounted on an exposed platform in the payload bay, and a separate series of experiments conducted by the crew in a small glovebox mounted in the shuttle middeck (see box, below).
While the bulk of the results will be discussed at the review, a couple of previews are available from inside the Shuttle and out in the payload bay.
"We got some very interesting results," said Dr. Doru Stefanescu of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. "We were able to prove our hypothesis." Stefanescu is principal investigator for the Particle Engulfment and Pushing (PEP) experiment, which the astronauts conducted in the glovebox.
 Sign up for our EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery |
Particle pushing occurs for example, when ice forms and pushes small objects out of the way. Thus, we notice the pavement cracking because ice pushes sand out (frost heaving). Particle engulfment, however, occurs in metals where the solidifying alloy incorporates ceramic particles (such as oxides or carbides) to make a new composite material. The fundamental physics involved is important to a range of industrial processes for making composites and other materials.
In PEP, Stefanescu and his team used transparent liquids that mimic metals in their behavior, and glass or plastic beads to mimic ceramics. As with all the USMP-4 experiments, conducting PEP in space eliminated certain effects due to gravity so scientists can see more clearly how materials behave and form.
"We saw a lower
critical velocity in space as compared to Earth," he said,
referring to the rate at which the freezing front in the liquid
will overtake rather than push solid particles.
Photograph from a ground test of PEP shows how particles can be engulfed or pushed by a solidification front.
One model, using succinonitrile and polystyrene beads, matched nicely with preflight theories. The other, using biphenyl and glass beads, did not fit as well and requires more analysis to understand what was happening.
"Our main goal is science," Stefanescu said, "to understand the interaction between a particle and the solid-liquid interface. Part Two is, once we understand an effect, to control it in a process developed on earth."
Meanwhile, the team that ran the most picturesque science - the Isothermal Dendrite Growth Experiment (IDGE) - found vindication for their design, and a big surprise in their data.
"From our perspective, it was a rip-roaring success," said Dr. Martin Glicksman, the principal investigator at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y.
| "We cleared up an issue that was bothering us before the flight," Glicksman said. "Another group said that pivalic acid was not a good analog for face-centered cubic crystals like aluminum, silver, and gold." Pivalic acid is a transparent liquid. When cooled, it grows crystals shaped like tree limbs - dendrites (below left) - that mimic the growth of crystals in molten metals. Again, studying such models helps scientists understand the behavior of other materials. |
If the critics were right about pivalic acid not being a good model, Glicksman said, then the team would have seen the crystals growing at different rates because of an effect called kinetic hindrance.
"We
were able to supercool [cool the liquid below its normal freezing
point] the sample to 1.25 deg. C and saw the crystals growing
at 700 to 800 microns (more than 1/30th inch) a second,"
he continued. "That fell right on the transport line we
had predicted. We knew right away that this kinetic hindrance
effect was not true."
Left: Scanning electron microscope image of dendrites shows their tree-like shape and hints at how they interlock when all of a melt crystallizes.
The pivalic acid also had a surprise in store. Detailed examination of 35mm photographs of the crystal tips showed they are not parabolas (an open curve), but something closer to a hyperbola (another open curve that follows a different formula).
"This is still puzzling us as to how to analyze these shapes because they don't fit," Glicksman said. "We were surprised by this a bit."
More
surprises may lie in IDGE's other treasure trove, some 16 videotapes
of 117 experiments that were downlinked from the shuttle. Even
though the tapes were available right away, the team has not
played them back yet.
Right: This animated GIF shows dendrites growing during an early IDGE experiment.
"When you play and then replay, you run the risk of stretching the tape and introducing errors into the speed measurements," Glicksman explained. The IDGE team recently acquired a special tape digitizing system with a 100 gigabyte hard drive that will let them dub a complete tape onto a disk and then onto CD-ROMs for distribution and repeated playback.
"That's going to be a real gold mine," Glicksman said. "We expect to find out a lot of neat stuff dealing with the dynamic of dendrites."
Better than most presents, science never stops giving. You're always unwrapping the gift.
Isothermal Dendrite Growth
Experiment (IDGE)
grew dendritic (treelike) crystals under the gaze of video and
film cameras to provide valuable data on how crystals form within
metals, and to demonstrate new remote-control operations - telescience
- that will be important to International Space Station.
Advanced Automated Directional Solidification Furnace (AADSF)
melted and resolidified infrared detector crystals in a study
of the best condition for growing sensitive electronics in space.
Confined Helium Experiment (CHeX) used sheets of
liquid helium between silicon disks to simulate 2-dimensional
conditions that are expected to control the design of ultrasmall
electronics in a few years.
Materials for the Study of Interesting Phenomena of Solidification
on Earth and In Orbit Experiment (MEPHISTO) melted and
resolidified metal samples as electrical currents were passed
through to measure growth rates.
Space Acceleration Measurement System (SAMS) and
the Orbital Acceleration Research Experiment (OARE)
monitored vibrations and motions throughout the mission.
Enclosed Laminar Flame
(ELF) experiment
studied flame growth and stability. Results will help in understanding
and controlling flames in jet engines.
Particle Engulfment and Pushing (PEP) experiment
looks for the critical velocity where an object is no longer
pushed by a freeze front but becomes engulfed. This helps determine
whether a material is incorporated in a new mixture or pushed
out.
Wetting Characteristics of Immiscibles (WCI) may
answer questions about why experiments that should have produced
even dispersions of one material in another (like oil droplets
flash frozen in water) instead produced a single mass of one
material coated by another.
More Space Science Headlines - NASA research on the web
Microgravity Program Office at Marshall Space Flight Center
Life and Microgravity programmatic information from NASA headquarters.
Join
our growing list of subscribers - sign
up for our express news delivery and you will receive
a mail message every time we post a new story!!!return to Space Science News Home
Author: Dave
Dooling
Curator: Linda Porter
NASA Official: Gregory
S. Wilson