Vs. Yuferev et al., 3-DIMENSIONAL THERMAL-CONVECTION CAUSED BY SPACECRAFT ROTATION IN A RECTANGULAR ENCLOSURE WITH RIGID WALLS, Physics of fluids (1994), 10(10), 1998, pp. 2517-2524
The influence of the spacecraft's rotation on the convection in a nonu
niformly heated fluid under microgravity conditions has been studied.
This influence is determined by action of the buoyancy force generated
by the resultant microacceleration vector and the inertia force relat
ed to variations in the angular rotational velocity of the spacecraft.
It is shown that the solenoidal part of the resulting rotational forc
e acting upon the nonuniformly heated fluid strongly depends on the an
gle between the temperature gradient at some point in he fluid and the
radius victor of this point relative to the spacecraft's centroid. To
minimize the influence of the spacecraft's rotation, it is necessary
to make this angle close to zero. The thermal convection which could h
ave arisen in a rectangular box with rigid walls under rotation of the
Space Shuttle orbiter has been simulated numerically. It is shown tha
t the intensity of this kind of convection may be rather appreciable.
(C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.