Thermophysical property measurements in microgravity
Iván Egry
Experiments recently carried out in a microgravity environment with the electromagnetic levitation facility TEMPUS are reviewed. Containerless processing in microgravity provides optimum conditions for measuring thermophysical properties of liquid metals. Specific heat, density, electrical conductivity, viscosity, and surface tension were obtained as a function of temperature over a wide temperature range, including the undercooled regime for a variety of metals and alloys. The choice of materials investigated included pure metals, binary alloys, and multicomponent alloys. Among the latter, special attention was given to glass-forming systems. Most of these data have been derived for the first time; where comparison to data obtained under terrestrial conditions is possible, the agreement is excellent.