ISS Experiments for the Clarification of Boiling and Two-phase Flow in Microgravity and for the Development of High-performance Space Cold Plates

In flow boiling, gravity effects on the distribution of both phases are observed in a heated tube and heat transfer coefficients due to two-phase forced convection is deteriorated in microgravity. In narrow channels between heated and unheated plates, the increase in subcooling enlarges a size of flattened bubble and reduces the frequency of detachment under microgravity conditions resulting the emphasis of heat transfer deterioration. To clarify reasons for the unknown behaviors of interfacial distribution and corresponding characteristics in heat transfer not easily be clarified through the experiments on ground, the opportunity on the experiments utilizing long-term microgravity duration realized in ISS is required. The experiments on microgravity boiling and two-phase flow are proposed by the collaboration of researchers in five countries. A common test loop is designed to conduct multiple experiments by the interchangeable structures of test sections; a transparent heated tube for the visualized flow boiling, a stainless tube for the measurement of CHF data, a copper surface for the heat transfer data of nucleate boiling with superimposed liquid flows in a duct, a glass heated plate with multiple array of small temperature sensors and transparent heaters for the clarification of mechanisms in nucleate boiling heat transfer, and one or two models of cold plates for practical applications. A direction of researches in the present discipline is proposed based on the existing experimental results and on the idea developed by the present authors.