Effect of spacecraft rotation on convection and impurity segregation during the growth of crystals from a melt under microgravity

摘要

It is shown that convection and impurity transport in a melt originating due to variations in spacecraft rotation are determined by the combined action of the buoyancy force generated by the resultant microacceleration vector and the inertia force connected with variations of the spacecraft rotation rate. As a result, the inhomogenity in impurity distribution are strongly dependent on the angle between the temperature gradient at some point in the melt and the radius vector of this point relative to the spacecraft's centered. A numerical simulation is performed for convection and impurity segregation in a cube container with rotation of an unmanned satellite of Photon type and the Space Shuttle orbiter.