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Space experimental investigation on thermocapillary migration of bubbles

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Abstract

Results from a space experiment on bubble thermocapillary migration conducted on board the Chinese 22nd recoverable satellite were presented. Considering the temperature field in the cell was disturbed by the accumulated bubbles, the temperature gradient was corrected firstly with the help of the temperature measurement data at six points and numerical simulation. Marangoni number (Ma) of single bubble migrating in the space experiment ranged from 98.04 to 9288, exceeding that in the previous experiment data. The experiment data including the track and the velocity of two bubble thermocapillary migration showed that a smaller bubble would move slower as it was passed by a larger one, and the smaller one would even rest in a short time when the size ratio was large enough.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Microgravity Laboratory, Institute of Mechanics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100080, China

    HaiLiang Cui, Liang Hu, Li Duan, Qi Kang & WenRui Hu

Authors
  1. HaiLiang Cui
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  2. Liang Hu
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  3. Li Duan
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  4. Qi Kang
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  5. WenRui Hu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Qi Kang.

Additional information

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 10432060) and the Knowledge Innovation Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (KJCX2-SW-L05, KACX2-SW-322)

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Cui, H., Hu, L., Duan, L. et al. Space experimental investigation on thermocapillary migration of bubbles. Sci. China Ser. G-Phys. Mech. Astron. 51, 894–904 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-008-0005-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11433-008-0005-x

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