NASA has selected for funding 39 two-to-four year research proposals
for microgravity fluid physics research worth approximately $13 million.
Supported by NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Science and Applications,
Washington, DC, this research offers investigators the opportunity to take
advantage of a low-gravity environment to improve understanding of fundamental
physical and chemical processes associated with fluid physics phenomena,
which are often masked by normal gravity. Increasing knowledge of fundamental
fluid physics will provide the foundation for new technology advances and
permit humans to live and work in space.
Fluid physicists seek to better understand the physical principles governing
fluids, including how fluids flow under the influence of energy, such as
heat or electricity; how particles and gas bubbles suspended in a fluid
interact with and change the properties of the fluid; how fluids interact
with solid boundaries; and how fluids change phase, either from fluid to
solid or from one fluid phase to another.
The investigators will have NASA's microgravity research facilities,
such as drop towers and aircraft for flying parabolic trajectories at their
disposal as needed, with the flight definition investigations working toward
experiments on a space- flight testbed, such as sounding rockets, the Space
Shuttle or the International Space Station.
Thirty-three of the grants are for ground-based research, while the
remaining six are flight definition efforts. Two of these grants are for
continuation of work currently funded by NASA, but the remaining 37 proposals
represent new research efforts. NASA reviewed 227 proposals in response
to its research announcement.
Following are the list of the grant recipients
Flight Research
California
Arizona
Dr. Van P. Carey
University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
"Marangoni Effects on Near-Bubble Microscale Transport
During Boiling of Binary Fluid Mixtures"
Dr. John K. Eaton
Stanford University
Stanford, CA
"Attenuation of Gas Turbulence by a Nearly Stationary
Dispersion of Fine Particles"
Dr. Edgar Knobloch
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
"Weakly Nonlinear Description of Parametric Instabilities
in Vibrating Flows"
Dr. L. Gary Leal
University of California, Santa
Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA
"Interaction Forces and the Flow-Induced Coalescence
of Drops and Bubbles"
Dr. Robert L. Powell
University of California, Davis
Davis, CA
"Experimental Studies of Multiphase Materials Using Nuclear
Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and NMR Imaging"
Dr. Constantine
Pozrikidis University of
California, San Diego
LaJolla, CA
"Dynamics of Accelerated Interfaces: Parametric Excitation
and Fluid Sloshing in Closed Containers and Open Tanks"
Dr. Theofanis
Theofanous University of
California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA
"The Pool Boiling Crisis From Flat Plates: Mechanism(s)
and Enhancement"
Dr. Robert H. Davis
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO
"Thermocapillary-Induced Phase Separation of Dispersed
Systems with Coalescence"
Dr. Hermann Riecke
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL
"Complex Dynamics in Marangoni Convection with Rotation"
Dr. R. Glynn Holt
Boston University
Boston, MA
"Rheology of Foam Near the Order-Disorder Transition"
Dr. Gareth H. McKinley
Massachussets Institute of
Technology
Cambridge, MA
"An Interferometric Investigation of Contact Line Dynamics
in Spreading Polymer Melts and Solutions"
Dr. Hasan N. Oguz
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD
"Production and Removal of Gas Bubbles in Microgravity"
Dr. Gretar Tryggvason
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
"Computations of Boiling in Microgravity"
Dr. Nengli Zhang
Ohio Aerospace Institute
Cleveland, OH
"Enhanced Boiling on Micro-Configured Composite Surfaces
Under Microgravity Conditions"
Dr. Gregory Zimmerli
NYMA, Inc.
Brookpark OH
"The Small-Scale Structure of Turbulence"