Possible use of Skull melting under microgravity

Skull melting is a special kind of direct inductive heating which allows quasi-crucible-free processing of materials with very high melting points (3000 K and above). Under terrestrial gravity, the temperature gradients essential to the Skull technique cause buoyancy driven convection in the melt, which might interfere with crystal growth. Skull melting could therefore benefit from processing in a microgravity environment. We report on results of a joint project under contract with the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC), which has evaluated the possible use of Skull melting in microgravity from two main viewpoints: the power efficiency and the expected effects of mu g environment on melt convection. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.