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Boiling Experiment Facility (BXF)
10.29.09
Scientists and payload developers can get more information on International Space Station research facilities by contacting the ISS Payloads Office or at 281-244-6187.

Overview | Description | Applications | Operations | Results | Publications | Images

Facility/Payload Overview

Brief Facility Summary

The Boiling Experiment Facility (BXF) will allow the implementation of experiments to obtain data that increases the understanding of the processes involved with boiling in gravity and microgravity and of the heat transfer and vapor removal processes that take place during boiling in microgravity. The research should enable the development of more efficient cooling systems on future spacecraft and on Earth.

Facility Manager(s)

  • Richard DeLombard, Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH

    • Co-Facility Manager(s)

    Information Pending

    Facility Developer

    Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH

    Sponsoring Agency

    National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

    Expeditions Assigned

    Information Pending

    Previous ISS Missions

    BXF is unique hardware which has not flown in microgravity.

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    Facility/Payload Description

    Facility Summary

    • The International Space Station (ISS) provides the ideal laboratory for studying the influence of microgravity on boiling.


    • The Boiling Experiment Facility (BXF) will validate models being developed for heat transfer coefficients, critical heat flux, and the pool boiling curves. Understanding of microgravity effects on boiling mechanisms is critical to the proper design of heat removal equipment for use in space-based applications.


    • Boiling is relevant to space-based hardware and processes such as heat exchangers, cryogenic fuel storage, and electronic cooling due to the large amounts of heat that can be removed with small increases in the temperature of the heat transfer fluid. This reduces the temperature difference between the heat source and radiator. For space applications, this reduction in the temperature difference equates to a higher radiator temperature which can reduce the radiator area and weight.

    Description

    The Boiling eXperiment Facility (BXF) has been designed to operate in the Microgravity Science Glovebox (MSG) on the International Space Station (ISS). BXF consists of a boiling chamber mounted within a containment vessel. The boiling chamber has three science heaters, pressure and temperature measurement instrumentation, a bellows assembly for pressure control, and pumps for liquid conditioning. The containment vessel provides the second and third levels of containment for the test fluid in the event of a leak of the test fluid from the boiling chamber. Standard rate (29.97 Hz) video cameras are mounted inside the chamber to provide two orthogonal side-view images and a standard side view of image. The high-speed video camera is mounted on the exterior of the containment vessel wall and acquires 4 seconds of images through the bottom of the heater at 500 images per second.

    An avionics box contains the data acquisition and control unit, removable hard drives, indicator panel, and the control unit for the high-speed video camera. The avionics box interfaces with the Microgravity Science Glovebox laptop computer, the high-speed video camera, and the BXF-embedded controller boards within the containment vessel.

    All three heater arrays are located in a single fluid-filled test chamber. Various data, temperature and pressure, and video will be acquired throughout the testing process. Postflight processing and analysis of this data and video will lead to the ability to both better understand the heat transfer process and to generate accurate mathematical models of that heat transfer process.

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    Operations

    Facility Operations

    A test chamber produces the appropriate pressure and temperature conditions for the 3.5 liters of test fluid, n-perfluorohexane. Each investigation utilizes custom heaters. There are currently two arrays of 96 individually-controlled microheaters coupled with a side-view camera and a high-speed camera imaging through the bottom of the microheaters. There is another single heater array, consisting of 5 independently controlled heaters that activate individual bubble nucleation sites.

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    Results/More Information

    Information Pending

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    Availability

    Information Pending

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    Related Web Sites

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    Publications

    Results Publications

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      Related Publications
      • Henry CD, Kim J. Thermocapillary Effects on Low-G Pool Boiling From Microheater Arrays of Various Aspect Ratio. Microgravity Science and Technology. ;XVI:170-175. 2005
      • Yin Z, Prosperetti A, Kim J. Bubble Growth on an Impulsively Powered Microheater. International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer. ;47(5):1053-1067. 2004

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      Images

      imageBXF chamber testing at Glenn Research Center.
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      Information Provided and Updated by the ISS Program Scientist's Office
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