Investigating Thermophysical Properties Under Microgravity: A Review

Abstract

The advancement of metallic alloys is generally driven by alloy development, but furthermore requires the development of suitable production and processing routines. Almost all metallic products are formed through the solidification processing from the liquid phase. Although the solid‐state is not influenced by gravitational effects, the processing of liquids is strongly impacted by earth's gravity—this influences interface phenomena, momentum, heat, and mass transport and, consequently, the solidification events. Experiments on liquid metallic alloys in microgravity avoid these influences and therefore allow benchmark experiments. This allows, for example, to obtain reliable thermophysical properties, improve the understanding of nucleation, phase selection, crystal growth, and other basic features of the liquid phase and the liquid–solid transition. The basic methodology, as well as a number of recent results obtained in the long‐duration microgravity environment on board the international space station, are presented and discussed.