The Conception of Liquid Helium Boiling Experiment in Microgravity and Ukrainian Cryogenic Facility for International Space Station

摘要

Basing upon experience gained in investigations of cryogenic liquids boiling, including liquid ~(4)He, authors have substantiated a possibility to carry out a series of experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS), with surpose of testing a usability of the existing theory of boiling under microgrevity (MG) conditions, and to identify new effects related to the stability of boiling regimes to local disturbances and to temperature-autowave dynamics after the loss of stability. Specific features of the experiment are: the application of liquid helium with purpose of reducing both linear and time-related interior scales of boiling process, as well as the method of helium-cryostat rotation for obtaining, in a boiling surface area, of the constant in terms of magnitude and direction relative to the centrifugal acceleration, η=10~(-4), which should outstrip, by an order of magnitude, the ISS residual acceleration background. Authors have developed the experiment program project and defined major characteristics of the experimental equipment named Ukrainian Cryogenic Facility (USF) to be a payload component aboard the ISS.