University of Iowa:

Principal Investigator: C. Beckermann
Post-doctoral Researchers: Richard Hardin, Qiao Li
Graduate Students: Yili Lu, J. Ramirez,...

Co-Investigators:

I. Steinbach (Access, Aachen, Germany), A. Karma (NEU), H.C. deGroh III (Nasa Glenn)

This is a NASA-sponsored project to define a microgravity flight experiment in materials science. Please look at the NASA Space Research home page to learn more about such experiments. This page is also a good place to look research announcements, task books, etc. We plan to have more detailed information on this project in the near future. For now, the following overview is provided:

Objectives:

The objectives of the research are to determine the microstructural evolution and thermo-solutal interactions during equiaxed dendritic growth of dendrites of the alloy succinonitrile-acetone (SCN-ACE). This alloy is a transparent model substance that solidifies like metallic alloys but allows for visual observations during growth. The benchmark data acquired in the microgravity experiment will be used to test and develop equiaxed dendritic solidification models.

Significance and Background:

The research will establish a more firm scientific basis for the modeling and simulation of microstructure evolution in metal casting processes in order to optimize material properties. The planned experiment extends previous microgravity experiments on the growth of a single dendrite of a pure substance (i.e., the IDGE experiment of Prof. Glicksman at RPI) to equiaxed dendritic growth of alloy dendrites. [Please consult the RPI-NASA IDGE Home Page for further information on the IDGE.]