The near weightlessness of a material in the reduced gravity environment of space offers the opportunity of melting and cooling glass forming compositions without a container. This reduces the heterogeneous nucleation/crystallization which usually occurs at the walls of the container, thereby, extending the range of glass forming compositions. Based primarily on this idea, containerless glass forming experiments, which used a single axis acoustic levitator/furnace (SAAL), were conducted on SPAR rocket flights, 6 and 8, and on Space Shuttle mission, STS-7 and STS-61A. The experiments on the Space Shuttle were designed to include other studies related to melt homogenization and mixing, development of techniques for preparing uncontaminated preflight samples, and simple shaping experiments.


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    Title :

    Containerless processing of glass forming melts in space


    Contributors:
    Day, D. E. (author) / Ray, C. S. (author)


    Publication date :

    1988-10-01


    Type of media :

    Miscellaneous


    Type of material :

    No indication


    Language :

    English




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