STUDY OF TWO-PHASE FLOW AND HEAT TRANSFER IN MICROGRAVITY

DESIGN OF THE TWO-PHASE FLOW SYSTEMS WHICH ARE ANTICIPATED TO BE UTILIZED IN FUTURE SPACECRAFT AND SATELLITES WILL REQUIRE A KNOWLEDGE OF THE TWO-PHASE FLOW AND HEAT TRANSFER PARAMETERS UNDER REDUCED GRAVITY CONDITIONS. THE PROPOSED RESEARCH PROGRAM IS AIMED AT STUDYING THE PROBLEM OF TWO-PHASE FLOW AND HEAT TRANSFER IN MICROGRAVITY AND TO DEVELOP A TEST PLANT FOR AN EXPERIMENTAL PROGRAM TO EXTEND AND CLARITY THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE IMPORTANT PARAMETERS IN THIS FIELD. THE PROJECT OBJECTIVES WILL BE ACHIEVED BY (1) ANALYZING THE EXISTING DATA AND MODELS; (2) IDENTIFYING THE AREAS WHICH REQUIRE MORE TESTING; (3) STUDYING THE INSTRUMENTATION AND METHOD OF TESTING USED IN BOTH REDUCED AND EARTH GRAVITY EXPERIMENTS; (4) DEVELOPING A TEST PLANAND PROCEDURE FOR THE PROPOSED EXPERIMENTS TO BE DESIGNED IN PHASE II.IN ADDITION TO THE MAIN OUTCOME OF THE PROJECT, THE WORK PLAN WILL RESULT IN A DATA BASE OF EXISTING EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS FOR THE TWOPHASE FLOW PARAMETERS, A SET OF WORKING RELATIONS WHICH CAN BE USED IN THE DESIGN AND SELECTION OF THE HARDWARE, AND GUIDELINES FOR DEVELOPING INSTRUMENTATION FOR THE TWO-PHASE PARAMETERS IN MICROGRAVITY.