Constrained Vapor Bubble

Facility Description

The Constrained Vapor Bubble (CVB) hardware is retired and unavailable. Please see the additional information section below for currently available ISSInternational Space Station hardware and facilities that can support similar investigations.

The CVB hardware represented a passive wickless heat pipe used to study the physics of evaporation and condensation in microgravityThe condition of perceived weightlessness created when an object is in free fall, for example when an object is in orbital motion. Microgravity alters many observable phenomena within the physical and life sciences, allowing scientists to study things in ways not possible on Earth. The International Space Station provides access to a persistent microgravity environment., and how they affect cooling processes. CVB consisted of a quartz cuvette that was closed at one end. The cuvette length was 20, 30, or 40 mm; the internal cavity was 3 mm x 3 mm, and the wall thickness was 1.25 mm. A heater was applied to one end (the hot end) to induce evaporation and the opposite end (the cold end) was attached to a cold finger to induce condensation. Thermocouples were embedded into the outside surface of the cuvette for temperature measurements, a pressure transducer was attached to the assembly for internal pressure measurements, and the cuvette was mounted inside the Light Micorscopy Module (LMM) microscope for flow visualization.