Physics, Mathematics & Computer Science
Equilibrium Position Predictions for Fluids Education Experiment
Document Type
Poster Presentation
Location
Indianapolis, IN
Subject Area
Physics, Mathematics & Computer Science
Start Date
11-4-2014 8:30 AM
End Date
11-4-2014 9:30 AM
Sponsor
John Kizito (North Carolina A&T State University)
Description
Fluids Education is a NASA-funded undergraduate engineering student project. One of the scientific goals is to test two popular computer codes for modeling capillary fluid physics (liquid and gas flows where surface tension and wetting of solid surfaces contribute significantly to the overall outcome). Fluids Education experiments provide multiple test cases of unproven computer models of droplets and droplet stability for low Bond number conditions, where capillary forces are more significant than gravitational forces, within one simple piece of student-designed hardware. Computational predictions include fluid equilibrium positions and speed of changes from, for example, a liquid plug in a tube to a droplet on the wall in response to astronaut control of the experiments, which will take place on the International Space Station. My focus is on creating a portfolio of equilibrium predictions which covers the range of test cases made possible by the hardware. Results will assess the reliability of the tested computer codes for design of both spaceflight systems and low Bond number Earth-bound systems. Such Earth-bound systems include miniature medical devices, refrigeration cycles, and automotive fuel cells, as well as a variety of physiological and biological processes.
Equilibrium Position Predictions for Fluids Education Experiment
Indianapolis, IN
Fluids Education is a NASA-funded undergraduate engineering student project. One of the scientific goals is to test two popular computer codes for modeling capillary fluid physics (liquid and gas flows where surface tension and wetting of solid surfaces contribute significantly to the overall outcome). Fluids Education experiments provide multiple test cases of unproven computer models of droplets and droplet stability for low Bond number conditions, where capillary forces are more significant than gravitational forces, within one simple piece of student-designed hardware. Computational predictions include fluid equilibrium positions and speed of changes from, for example, a liquid plug in a tube to a droplet on the wall in response to astronaut control of the experiments, which will take place on the International Space Station. My focus is on creating a portfolio of equilibrium predictions which covers the range of test cases made possible by the hardware. Results will assess the reliability of the tested computer codes for design of both spaceflight systems and low Bond number Earth-bound systems. Such Earth-bound systems include miniature medical devices, refrigeration cycles, and automotive fuel cells, as well as a variety of physiological and biological processes.
