• Ingenium
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.43-48
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• 2001

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers B
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• v.29 no.9 s.240
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• pp.988-996
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• 2005

Flame structure and extinction mechanism of counterflow methane/air non-premixed flame diluted with nitrogen are studied by NASA 2.2 s drop tower experiments and two-dimensional numerical simulations with finite rate chemistry and transport properties. Extinction mechanism at low strain rate is examined through the comparison among results of microgravity experiment, 1D and 2D simulations with a finite burner diameter. A two-dimensional simulation in counterflow flame especially with a finite burner diameter is shown to be very important in explaining the importance of multidimensional effects and lateral heat loss in flame extinction, effects that cannot be understood using a one-dimensional flamelet model. Extinction mechanism at low strain rate is quite different from that at high strain rate. Low strain rate flame is extinguished initially at the outer flame edge, the flame shrinks inward, and finally is extinguished at the center. It is clarified from the overall fractional contribution by each term in energy equation to heat release rate that the contribution of radiation fraction with 1D and 2D simulations does not change so much and the overall fractional contribution is decisively attributed to radial conduction ('lateral heat loss'). The experiments by Maruta et at. can be only completely understood if multi-dimensional heat loss effects are considered. It is, as a result, verified that the turning point, which is caused only by pure radiation heat loss, has to be shifted towards much lower global strain rate in microgravity flame.

• Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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• v.27 no.3
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• pp.335-341
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• 2016

In this study, impurity effects on diffusive-convection flow fields by physical vapor transport under terrestrial and microgravity conditions were numerically analyzed for the mixture of $Hg_2Cl_2-I_2$ system. The numerical analysis provides the essence of diffusive-convection flow as well as heat and mass transfer in the vapor phase during the physical vapor transport through velocity vector flow fields, streamlines, temperature, and concentration profiles. The total molar fluxes at the crystal regions were found to be much more sensitive to both the gravitational acceleration and the partial pressure of component $I_2$ as an impurity. Our results showed that the solutal effect tended to stabilize the diffusive-convection flow with increasing the partial pressure of component $I_2$. Under microgravity conditions below $10^{-3}g_0$, the flow fields showed a one-dimensional parabolic flow structure indicating a diffusion-dominant mode. In other words, at the gravitational levels less than $10^{-3}g_0$, the effects of convection would be negligible.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.32 no.1
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• pp.81-89
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• 2015

In this paper, we describe the development of a bioreactor for a cell-culture experiment on the International Space Station (ISS). The bioreactor is an experimental device for culturing mouse muscle cells in a microgravity environment. The purpose of the experiment was to assess the impact of microgravity on the muscles to address the possibility of long-term human residence in space. After investigation of previously developed bioreactors, and analysis of the requirements for microgravity cell culture experiments, a bioreactor design is herein proposed that is able to automatically culture 32 samples simultaneously. This reactor design is capable of automatic control of temperature, humidity, and culture-medium injection rate; and satisfies the interface requirements of the ISS. Since bioreactors are vulnerable to cell contamination, the medium-circulation modules were designed to be a completely replaceable, in order to reuse the bioreactor after each experiment. The bioreactor control system is designed to circulate culture media to 32 culture chambers at a maximum speed of 1 ml/min, to maintain the temperature of the reactor at $36{\pm}1^{\circ}C$, and to keep the relative humidity of the reactor above 70%. Because bubbles in the culture media negatively affect cell culture, a de-bubbler unit was provided to eliminate such bubbles. A working model of the reactor was built according to the new design, to verify its performance, and was used to perform a cell culture experiment that confirmed the feasibility of this device.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.80-87
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• 2019

In this paper, we propose a method to apply the polynomial fitting for regional-residual separation of microgravity data based on the characteristics of gravity anomaly without a prior information. Since the microgravity survey is usually carried out in small regions, it is common to approximate regional anomaly by the first-order polynomial plane. However, if the regional anomaly patterns are difficult to be approximated to a first-order plane, the complete gravity anomaly is divided into small zones enough to approximate first-order plane by means of Parasnis density estimation method. The regional-residual separation is then applied on the splitted zones individually. When the gravity anomalies can be splitted spatially, we showed that the residual anomalies can be more effectively extracted based on the regional geological structures by regional anomaly separation from each of the divided regions, rather than applying the entire data set at one time.

• Journal of the Korean Crystal Growth and Crystal Technology
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.20-26
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• 2013

Special attention in the role of convection in vapor crystal growth has been paid since some single crystals under microgravity environments less than 1 $g_0$ exhibits a diffusive-convection mode and much uniformity in front of the crystal regions than a normal gravity acceleration of 1 $g_0$. The total molar fluxes show asymmetrical patterns in interfacial distribution, which indicates the occurrence of either one single or more than one convective cell. As the gravitational level decreases form 1 $g_0$ down to $1.0{\times}10^{-4}\;g_0$, the intensity of convection, indicative of the maximum molar fluxes, is reduced significantly for ${\Delta}T=30K$ and 90 K. The total molar fluxes decay first order exponentially with the partial pressure of component B, PB (Torr) for 20 Torr ${\leq}PB{\leq}$ 300 Torr, and two gravity accelerations of $g_y=1\;g_0$ and 0.1 $g_0$.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Manufacturing Process Engineers
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• v.18 no.12
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• pp.104-110
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• 2019

A nanosatellite designed by the Korea Microgravity Science Laboratory (KMSL) is currently under development. The KMSL nanosatellite is designed to perform two different scientific missions in space. To successfully complete missions, a variety of tests must be conducted to verify the performance of the designed satellite before launch. As part of the qualification test campaign, the KMSL nanosatellite underwent high level vibrational tests (to comply with Falcon 9 qualification level) to demonstrate the integrity of the system. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the primary structure and all electronic and mechanical components can withstand the vibrations and the loads experienced during the launch period. To this end, the KMSL nanosatellite was exposed to static and dynamic loads and various types of vibrations that are inevitably produced during the space vehicle launch period. The vibration test results clearly demonstrated that all avionics and mechanical components can withstand the vibrations and the loads applied to the KMSL nanosatellite's body through a Pico-satellite Orbital Deployer (POD).

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.20-25
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• 2003

Measurements with filaments and thermocouples and computations with Oppdif and FDS were carried out to investigate the impact of flame strain, agent addition, and buoyancy on the structure and extinction of nonpremixed counterflow flames. Measurements through 2.2 s drop tests in microgravity conditions and experiments in normal gravity conditions were compared with the results of computations. For the global strain rates 7 s$^{-1}$ through 100 s$^{-1}$ , the turning point behavior in the critical nitrogen concentration at O-g was confirmed. The effects of buoyancy, that is, changes in the flame curvature and thickness were also confirmed by the computations with FDS. There was agreement in the peak flame temperature and its position between the computations and the measurements in the near extinction methane/air diffusion flames in microgravity.

• 한국지구물리탐사학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2008.10a
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• pp.167-172
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• 2008

A microgravity survey was applied for detecting and mapping karstic cavities over limestone area at Gaeun. The gravity data were collected at about 1, 100 stations by 4 m interval. The density distribution beneath the profiles was drawn by two dimensional inversion based on the minimum support stabilizing functional, which generated better focused images of density discontinuities. We also imaged three dimensional density distribution by growing body inversion. The density image showed that the cavities were dissolved, enlarged and connected into a cavity network system.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Propulsion Engineers
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.65-72
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• 2007

Fire is one of important checkpoints in crewed exploration systems, where men inhabit in space. In space, astronaut can't escape from fire out of a spacecraft and not expect any help of fire fighters, either. Accordingly, the best way to stand against fire is to prevent it. But, when fire occurs in space, flame behaviors are quite different from those observed on earth because of micro- or zero-gravity in space. The present paper introduces major research results on flame behaviors under microgravity and fire prevention, detection, and suppression in crewed exploration spacecrafts and international space station based on NASA's FPDS research program.