AEM Students with the “Right Stuff”

For a second year, two groups of AEM students participated in NASA’s reduced gravity flight experiments (see http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/) April 3-10, 2002, at the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas. Students went through training and performed their in-flight experiments aboard NASA’s KC-135, better know as the “Vomit Comet” or the “Weightless Wonder”, used for astronaut training and experiments. The KC-135 flies in a series of parabolas, typically 30 per flight in a designated area over the Gulf of Mexico. The climbs and dives are similar to a roller coaster and each parabola contains a 25 second float time at the top of the curve. The two experiments, which the students performed, are described below:

Effects of Microgravity on Random Close Packing Arrangements

Topic Area: Materials Science Team
Name: Metrology Junkies
Team Members: Bryan Henneman, David Kubat, Adam Creuziger, Jennifer Bonin, Ryan Wold and Richard Russell
Faculty Advisor: Professor Thomas Shield

The packing of spheres in a box can be used to model the spacing of particles in a composite material. Our experiment will provide physical data concerning the volume ratio of ball bearings in a box as one of the box’s walls is moved inwards. By measuring how the volume ratio varies with the wall velocity, we determined a relationship between wall speed and average packing volume ratio at the system’s maximally jammed state. We then compared this relationship to the current computational models of random close packing. By conducting this experiment in microgravity, the biasing effects of gravity can be considered negligible, as the computational models required.

Link to more photographs of the Materials Science team.
Link to the team's web site.

Study of Pinch-Off of Liquid-Liquid Flow in Micro- and Macro-gravity Conditions

Topic Area: Fluid Dynamics
Team Name: The Floating Gophers
Team Members: Nenad Bjelogrlic, Shirin Salber, Phillip Boigenzahn, Scott Williams, and Brandon Crook
Faculty Advisor: Professor Ellen Longmire

The pinch-off of immiscible fluids in a liquid-liquid flow is studied under micro- and macro-gravity conditions, and new methods of producing a constant droplet size are explored. The controlling variables were velocity of the flow, frequency and amplitude of the forcing signal. Surface tension reducing agents (surfactants) were introduced into the system and their affect on the pinch-off is recorded.

Link to more photographs of the Fluid Dynamics team.
Link to the team's web site.

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