Helical Fluid Containment In Microgravity Conditions.

摘要

Unsupported cylindrical liquid bridges have a critical length of 2piR, where R is the radius. Also they cannot be completely drained without rupturing.;Liquid bridges with helical supports have neither of these problems. The helical parameters can be varied to create minimal surfaces, such as helicoids and helicatenoids that can contain fluid volumes. Helical supports are robust microscale and microgravity containers, stable to infinite length. Theoretically, when two helical supports are used, the fluid can be fully drained. In this work, four stability ranges for the offset angle for double helical interfaces have been characterized.;Experiments have shown that stable cylindrical fluid interfaces supported by single or double helices are limited only by the length of the apparatus. Single helix experiments support the theory of the double helix being fully drainable; however, this could not be confirmed experimentally with the double helix.