Microgravity Fluids and Combustion Research at NASA Glenn Research Center
Publication: Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 26, Issue 2
Abstract
At the dawn of the Space Age, the design of early rocket and spacecraft systems presented significant challenges because of the low-gravity environment of space. Motivated by these challenges, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Glenn Research Center (GRC) pioneered the development of low-gravity facilities—including drop towers, sounding rockets, zero-gravity (zero-g) aircraft, and most importantly, space-based facilities—to advance microgravity research to further the nation’s space exploration efforts. These efforts resulted in improved spacecraft system designs and practices in areas as diverse as fluid handling and spacecraft fire safety. At the same time, researchers realized that the microgravity environment allows the study of fundamental combustion and fluid physics problems, without the complication of buoyancy-induced convection. Microgravity testing enabled advancements in areas of technological and ecological importance in terrestrial applications such as global atmospheric change, combustor design, groundwater pollution, oil production, and advanced materials manufacturing, which often rely on advances in fluid physics and chemically reacting flows. GRC has been a leader in microgravity fluid physics and combustion research for more than 50 years. This paper highlights the facilities and some of the many accomplishments.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Fred J. Kohl, ISS Research Project Manager at NASA GRC, for his wealth of information about the early days of microgravity fluids management through the current ISS microgravity research program. The success of this paper was also made possible by GRC researchers John B. McQuillen and Enrique Ramé, who contributed information regarding microgravity fluids experiments performed in GRC’s drop towers, zero-g aircraft, the Space Shuttle, and the ISS. The members of GRC's micorgravity combustion science and reacting systems branch are gratefully acknowledged for details regarding the history and accomplishments in microgravity combustion science. Finally, the authors acknowledge Robert S. Arrighi (Wyle Information Systems) from the NASA Glenn History Office for providing significant historical documentation about the zero-g drop tower facilities and aircraft.
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Information
Published In
Journal of Aerospace Engineering
Volume 26 • Issue 2 • April 2013
Pages: 439 - 450
Copyright
© 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: May 7, 2012
Accepted: Nov 7, 2012
Published online: Mar 15, 2013
Published in print: Apr 1, 2013
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