Browsing by Author "Mohler, Sam"
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Item Mitigation of Micro-Droplet Ejections During Open Cabin Unit Operations Aboard ISS(49th International Conference on Environmental Systems, 2019-07-07) Turner, Caleb; Weislogel, Mark; Goodman, Jesse; Mohler, Sam; Mungin, Rihana; Ungar, Eugene; Buchli, JenniferThe rupture and break-up of thin films, droplets, bubbles, and rivulets can produce tiny satellite droplet ejections. For example, when nearly any object is withdrawn from a liquid bath, the formation of an ever-thinning columnar rivulet eventually ruptures, ejecting a variety of satellite droplets that are often too small and too fast to observe by eye. In terrestrial environments such events are often of little concern due to the fact that gravity rapidly returns such drops to the liquid surface from which they came. This of course is not the case in low-g environments where during simple activities such as pipetting these satellite drops travel away from the liquid only to impact the surrounding surfaces leading to possible contamination of the working environment. In this work we demonstrate the variety of micro-droplet ejections formed during simple wet lab unit operations such as pipetting and how in the low-gravity environment such dynamics depend on system geometry, wettability, fluid properties, and withdraw rate. A large drop tower dataset is collected in support of regime maps organized by the appropriate dimensionless groups. The results can be exploited to guide mitigation strategies for high volume wet lab operations aboard spacecraft; i.e., manifold pipetting, sequencing, 3-D printing, and more.