The International Space Station (ISS): Droplet Combustion of Butanol
Contact: Prof. C.T. Avedisian cta2@cornell.edu mailto:cta2@cornell.edu
Phone: 5-5105
Office: 193 Grumman Hall
We are currently part of a team of five universities and NASA that is examining the droplet combustion characteristics of liquid fuels aboard the ISS. The Cornell component of this effort concerns ground-based studies to examine fuel droplets that may be considered as "surrogate" or replacement fuels for the more complex fuels used in power and propulsion devices. The droplet sizes we examine at Cornell are on the order of 0.5 mm while the droplets being studied in the ISS are on the order of several millimeters diameter.
The simplest configuration of droplet burning is that of spherical symmetry as shown in the figures below.
schematic of spherical symmetry photo of a nonane droplet (diameter = 0.5 mm)
Figure 1
We develop spherical droplet flames by employing a microgravity facility at Cornell. For this project, the student would work with a Ph.D candidate to use the facility to study the burning of butanol droplets which is a biofuel. This is an experimental study and some familiarity with experimental methods is useful.