Rheology of fluidized beds and settling suspensions were studied experimentally in a series of reduced gravity parabolic flights aboard NASA’s KC‐135 aircraft. Silica sands of two different size distributions were fluidized by air. The slurries were made using silica sand and Glycerol solution. The experimental set up incorporated instrumentation to measure the air flow rate, the pressure drop and the apparent viscosity of the fluidized sand and sand suspensions at a wide range of the shear rates. The fluidization chamber and container had transparent walls to allow visualization of the structure changes involved in fluidization and in Couette flow in reduced gravity. Experiments were performed over a broad range of gravitational accelerations including microgravity and double gravity conditions. The results of the flight and ground experiments reveal significant differences in overall void fraction and hence in the apparent viscosity of fluidized sand and sand suspensions under microgravity as compared to one-g conditions.


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    Title :

    Rheological measurements in reduced gravity



    Conference:

    Space technology and applications international forum -1999 ; 1999 ; Albuquerque, New Mexico (USA)


    Published in:

    AIP Conference Proceedings ; 458 , 1 ; 830-835


    Publication date :

    1999-01-22


    Size :

    6 pages





    Type of media :

    Conference paper


    Type of material :

    Electronic Resource


    Language :

    English



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