微重力条件下不同截面形状管中毛细流动的实验研究

Experimental study on the capillary flow in tubes of different shapes under microgravity condition

利用落塔设施创造的短时间微重力条件,研究了不同尺寸的正方形和三角形截面的毛细管中的流体在微重力条件下的流动行为,并与圆形毛细管中的毛细流动进行了对比,总结出了毛细管尺寸和截面形状对界面张力主导的毛细流动行为的影响规律.结果显示,对于同样形状的毛细管,其尺寸对于毛细流动的影响规律基本相同;而对于不同的截面形状,方形管和三角形管都与截面积小得多的圆形管有一定的类似性.相关结果对于深入理解不同条件下的界面张力主导的毛细流动特性,以及在空间微重力条件下通过改变毛细管的形状来实现流速和流量的独立控制等方面都具有明显的现实意义.

In this paper, we study the capillary flows in square tubes and in equilateral triangle tubes under microgravity condition by performing experiments in drop tower, and also compare them with those in circular tubes. Experimental results showned the influence of both size and shape of tubes on the capillary flow driven by interfacial forces. For tubes of the same shape, the influence of tube size is quite similar. Moreover, the capillary flows in square tubes and equilateral triangle tubes have some similarity with those in circular tubes with much smaller sizes. The results are helpful for understanding the capillary flows driven by interfacial forces with different parameters. And they are also useful for independently controlling the flow velocity and the volume flow rate by choosing appropriate tube shapes under microgravity condition.