Experimental Investigation of Dropwise Condensation Shedding by Shearing Airflow in Microgravity Using Different Surface Coatings.

The shedding kinematics of water droplets in a condensation environment when exposed to aerodynamic forces in microgravity was studied. Understanding the shedding of droplets from a surface is a critical part of the dropwise condensation process for improving heat transfer. Because gravity as a droplet removal technique is not available in space, the use of airflow to shed droplets is considered for condensing heat exchangers in environmental control and life support systems. Surface coatings affect drop adhesion, and here, four different surfaces (PMMA, PS, PTFE, and SHS) and various droplet sizes (80, 60, and 40 µL) were used to understand the above phenomenon. It was found that the critical velocity to shed a droplet in microgravity was up to 8% lower than that in normal gravity. Also, the effect of the droplet size was investigated for both microgravity and normal gravity; the shedding velocity was lower for microgravity, and it decreased as droplet size increased. Increasing the hydrophobicity of the coating decreased the critical velocity for shedding. Finally, the droplet was found to detach from superhydrophobic surfaces in microgravity. The detachment of droplets from the substrate will hamper the condensation process that can produce a larger fresh area; also, detachment of droplets and entrainment in airflow counter the concept of removing moisture from the air in a dehumidification process.

Thermocapillary effect on the dynamics of viscous beads on vertical fiber.

The gravity-driven flow of a thin liquid film down a uniformly heated vertical fiber is considered. This is an unstable open flow that exhibits rich dynamics including the formation of droplets, or beads, driven by a Rayleigh-Plateau mechanism modified by the presence of gravity as well as the variation of surface tension induced by temperature disturbance at the interface. A linear stability analysis and a nonlinear simulation are performed to investigate the dynamic of axisymmetric disturbances. The results showed that the Marangoni instability and the Rayleigh-Plateau instability reinforce each other. With the increase of the thermocapillary effect, the fiber flow has a tendency to break up into smaller droplets.

Nonmodal stability in Hagen-Poiseuille flow of a shear thinning fluid.

Linear stability in Hagen-Poiseuille flow of a shear-thinning fluid is considered. The non-Newtonian viscosity is described by the Carreau rheological law. The effects of shear thinning on the stability are investigated using the energy method and the nonmodal stability theory. The energy analysis shows that the nonaxisymmetric disturbance with the azimuthal wave number m=1 has the lowest critical energy Reynolds number for both the Newtonian and shear-thinning cases. With the increase of shear thinning, the critical energy Reynolds number decreases for both the axisymmetric and nonaxisymmetric cases. For the nonmodal stability, we focus on two problems: response to external excitations and response to initial conditions. The former is studied by examining the ε pseudospectrum, and the latter by examining the energy growth function G(t). For both Newtonian and shear-thinning fluids, it is found that there can be a rather large transient growth even though the linear operator of the Hagen-Poiseuille flow has no unstable eigenvalue. For the problem of response to external excitations, the optimal response is achieved by disturbance with m=1 for both the Newtonian and non-Newtonian cases. For the problem of response to initial conditions, the optimal disturbance is in the form of streamwise uniform streaks. Being different from the Newtonian case, the azimuthal wave number of the optimal disturbance may be greater than 1 for strongly shear-thinning cases.

Surface tension and its temperature coefficient of molten tin determined with the sessile drop method at different oxygen partial pressures.

The surface tension of molten tin has been determined by the sessile drop method at temperatures ranging from 523 to 1033 K and in the oxygen partial pressure (P(O(2))) range from 2.85 x 10(-19) to 8.56 x 10(-6) MPa, and its dependence on temperature and oxygen partial pressure has been analyzed. At P(O(2))=2.85 x 10(-19) and 1.06 x 10(-15) MPa, the surface tension decreases linearly with the increase of temperature and its temperature coefficients are -0.151 and -0.094 mN m(-1) K(-1), respectively. However, at high P(O(2)) (3.17 x 10(-10), 8.56 x 10(-6) MPa), the surface tension increases with the temperature near the melting point (505 K) and decreases above 723 K. The surface tension decrease with increasing P(O(2)) is much larger near the melting point than at temperatures above 823 K. The contact angle between the molten tin and the alumina substrate is 158-173 degrees, and the wettability is poor.