The invisible made visible

Abstract

The aim of this project was the development of a prototype that would detecting and visualize small variations of density in gases and apply it to the study of the flow of jets in a pressurized environment under microgravity conditions. There are several problems associated that are of great concern, because they involve great risk to both the integrity of the spacecraft and the lives of the astronauts. The device developed in this project should provide the astronaut with the ability of detecting and analysing in real time a gas leak in microgravity. The device based on this technology should have small dimensions in order to be portable. Our experience studied the behaviour of a flow near the laminar regime with the purpose of simulating a small gas leak in microgravity environment; this was possible during the last Student Parabolic Flight Campaign. By doing this simulation we have the possibility of executing two fundamental tasks which are essential for the success of our scientific and technologic proposal, namely not only verifying the efficiency of the leak detection method, in microgravity conditions, but also obtaining experimental data to be analysed according to fluid dynamical models.