About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2027 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Aluminum Alloys: Development and Fabrication Symposium and Supplier Forum
|
| Presentation Title |
Aluminium-Alloy Research in Space: Scientific Investigations onboard the International Space Station and other Microgravity Platforms |
| Author(s) |
Wilhelmus H. Sillekens, David J. Browne, Hani Henein, Guillaume Reinhart, Sonja Steinbach, Laszlo Sturz, Jonas Valloton |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Wilhelmus H. Sillekens |
| Abstract Scope |
Materials research in space relies on a unique experimental environment to conduct investigations that cannot be successfully done on Earth. Notably, an absence of gravity eliminates buoyancy/sedimentation and convection in a solidifying melt and by that creates clinical (purely diffusive) conditions to study solidification physics. For several decades now, the European Space Agency is implementing a research programme for that which enables the scientific community to conduct such studies for a wide variety of metallic and semiconductor materials. This paper introduces the platforms, research topics and facilities and highlights some of the experiments on aluminium-alloy solidification that have been done onboard the International Space Station (ISS) and other microgravity platforms. It covers investigations into the columnar-to-equiaxed transition and the effect of controlled fluid flow in directional solidification, thermophysical properties measurements of the melt by means of containerless processing, and the in-situ monitoring of equiaxed and directional solidification by means of X-ray radiography. Results are published widely in scientific journals and incorporated in thermodynamics and solidification simulation software. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: Light Metals |
| Keywords |
Solidification, Other, Aluminum |