![]() ![]() Several years ago, Bhattacharjee came up with the idea of building a vertical tower in which he could raise or lower a burning piece of fuel. It’s also important for engineers like Bhattacharjee who are looking to develop a unified theory of fire behavior that can account for buoyancy as a variable. And that’s important information to have for the engineers who decide which materials are safe and which aren’t for space flight. But in space, there’s no up or down, so buoyancy can’t do its thing.Īs a result, fire in space burns lower and slower. You see, on earth, fire depends on buoyancy to expel gases away from the flame and suck in new oxygen to feed it. ![]() One of their primary areas of research is examining how low- and zero-gravity environments affect the way fire behaves. What do you do with the 50-year-old ladder hatch from a former nuclear fallout shelter that’s been converted into a physics laboratory? If you are San Diego State University mechanical engineers Subrata Bhattacharjee and Fletcher Miller, you turn it into a flame tower that simulates the effects of microgravity on fire.īhattacharjee and Miller are combustion experts who study flames under a variety of conditions. The Curious Aztec takes you behind the scenes of scientific investigation and discovery taking place at San Diego State University. “I took one look and realized this would be perfect.”
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |