Visualization Study of Supercritical Fluid Convection and Heat Transfer in Weightlessness by Interferometry: A Brief Review

Supercritical fluids have become a hot topic in recent years, due to their wide applications in chemical and energy systems. With its sensitive thermal-transport properties in the near-critical region, supercritical/near-critical fluids behaviors, under both microgravity and terrestrial conditions, have become very interesting and challenging topic. This brief review is focused on the visualization experiments of fluid convection and heat transfer related critical phenomena by interferometer. Due to the sensitive property changes of critical fluids, it is very difficult to control and measure the supercritical fluid behaviors. In this review, non-intrusive visualization systems by interferometry are introduced and analyzed for experimental studies of fluids in the near-critical region. For near-critical and supercritical experiments, the temperature/density control and parameter analysis are of critical importance. The analysis of boundary conditions, convection behaviors and energy transfer modes of critical fluids, mainly under weightlessness, are also reviewed with recent opinions toward future development. It is hoped that this review could be helpful for related studies.