This paper discusses the flight experiment 'Coupled Growth in Hypermonotectics' schedules to fly aboard the life and microgravity spacelab mission during the summer of 1996. The experiment is designed to directionally solidify samples in immiscible alloy systems in an attempt to obtain an improved understanding of the physics controlling the solidification process. This paper specifically addresses some of the unique difficulties concerning ampoule design for these experiments. As an example, an ampoule material must be utilized that is not wet by the minor immiscible liquid phase. In addition, a means must be provided to accommodate thermal contraction and solidification shrinkage during processing in order to avoid free surface formation on the melt. An attempt has also been made to control thermal end effects in order to obtain a relatively constant growth rate during processing. The final design results in an ampoule assembly that contains insulating segments, dummy samples, moving pistons and a high temperature spring assembly. The details of this design and the results of ground based testing will be discussed.

Date Published: 12 July 1996
PDF: 11 pages
Proc. SPIE 2809, Space Processing of Materials, (12 July 1996); doi: 10.1117/12.244334

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 2809:
Space Processing of Materials
Narayanan Ramachandran, Editor(s)