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ISS Microgravity Experiments: Raw Data from NASA

Author
Sahoo, Shilpa; Louge, Michel Y.; Desjardins, Olivier
Abstract
To study imbibition on Earth, time and distance must be shrunk to mitigate gravity-induced distortion. These small scales make it impossible to observe the inertial and pinning processes in detail. Therefore, the microgravity on the International Space Station (ISS) was exploited to study the imbibition of water into a network of hydrophilic cylindrical capillaries on time and length scales long enough to observe details hitherto inaccessible under Earth gravity.
To investigate the role of contact pinning, a text matrix was produced which consisted nine kinds of porous capillary plates made of gold-coated brass treated with Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAM) that fixed advancing and receding contact angles to known values. In the ISS, astronaut Luca Parmitano slowly extruded water spheres until they touched any of nine capillary plates. The 12mm diameter droplets were large enough for high-speed GX1050C video cameras on top and side to visualize details near individual capillaries, and long enough to observe dynamics of the entire imbibition process. The high-speed videos of spreading and imbibition on the capillary plates were obtained and are presented here.
Description
Please cite as: Sahoo, Shilpa, Louge, Michel Y. , & Desjardins, Oliver. (2021). ISS Microgravity Experiments: Raw Data from NASA [Dataset]. Cornell University eCommons Repository. https://doi.org/10.7298/MKBW-KF79
Sponsorship
National Science Foundation Grant CBET 1637531 and User Agreement UA‐2017‐228 from the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space under NASA Cooperative Agreement NNH11CD70A
Date Issued
2021-07-09Subject
microgravity; International Space Station; capillary; imbibition; interfacial phenomena
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International
Rights URI
Type
dataset
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Attribution 4.0 International