Turbulent bubble suspensions and crystal growth in microgravity. Drop tower experiments and numerical simulations

[eng] We study the formation and spreading of a turbulent jet of bubbles in microgravity. This has been analyzed from the recordings obtained in previous experimental campaigns of microgravity. Results have been compared with a simplified model of passive bubbles, in which bubbles are advected by th...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Bitlloch Puigvert, Pau
Tipo de recurso: tesis doctoral
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2012
País:España
Institución:Universidad de Barcelona
Repositorio:Dipòsit Digital de la UB
OAI Identifier:oai:diposit.ub.edu:2445/35514
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/35514
http://hdl.handle.net/10803/96295
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Ambients de microgravetat
Cambres de bombolles
Turbulència
Solidificació
Reduced gravity environments
Bubble chambers
Turbulence
Solidification
Descripción
Sumario:[eng] We study the formation and spreading of a turbulent jet of bubbles in microgravity. This has been analyzed from the recordings obtained in previous experimental campaigns of microgravity. Results have been compared with a simplified model of passive bubbles, in which bubbles are advected by the mean flow and dispersed due to the local degree of turbulence at each point of the jet. Thanks to the expertise obtained with this part of the thesis, we have designed and built a new experiment that has been used 36 times in the 4.7 s drop tower of ZARM (“Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity”) in Bremen. With this experiment we have obtained, for the first time in history, a monodisperse suspension of bubbles, within a turbulent flow, in microgravity. From the resulting measures we have characterized the relaxation time of pseudo-turbulence (previously generated due to the effect of buoyancy forces upon the injected bubbles in normal gravity conditions). We have also studied the interaction between bubbles and the turbulent medium. Results have been compared with Lattice-Boltzmann simulations of the flow. On the other hand, we have also studied the impact of residual gravitational vibrations (known as g-jitters) upon the quality of semiconductors solidified in microgravity. The quality of the resulting crystals has been studied from the analysis of the inhomogeneities in their dopant concentration. This study has been based entirely on simulations, but g-jitters have been modeled from acceleration signals measured in real space missions.