Table 1.
NSF-funded research projects that have resulted from the NSF-CASIS joint solicitation for microgravity research in transport phenomena on the ISS to benefit life on Earth. Projects with multiple principal investigators (PIs) are collaborative projects. The PI institution is the PI’s institution at the time of award.
| No. | Year Awarded | Project Title | PI Name(s) | PI Institution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2016 | ISS: Quantifying Cohesive Sediment Dynamics for Advanced Environmental Modeling | Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz, Eckart Meiburg | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| 2 | 2016 | ISS: Unmasking contact-line mobility for Inertial Spreading using Drop Vibration and Coalescence | Susan Daniel (Former PI: Paul Steen) | Cornell University |
| 3 | 2016 | ISS: Kinetics of nanoparticle self-assembly in directing fields | Eric Furst | University of Delaware |
| 4 | 2016 | ISS: Inertial Spreading and Imbibition of a Liquid Drop Through a Porous Surface | Michel Louge, Olivier Desjardins | Cornell University |
| 5 | 2016 | ISS: Constrained Vapor Bubbles of Ideal Mixtures | Joel Plawsky | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
| 6 | 2017 | ISS: Collaborative Research: Spherical Cool Diffusion Flames Burning Gaseous Fuels | Peter Sunderland | University of Maryland, College Park |
| Richard Axelbaum | Washington University in St. Louis | |||
| Forman Williams | University of California, San Diego | |||
| 7 | 2017 | ISS: Collaborative Research: Thermally activated directional mobility of vapor bubbles in microgravity using microstructured surfaces | Sushil Bhavnani | University of California, Davis |
| Vinod Narayanan | Auburn University | |||
| 8 | 2017 | ISS: Flame Spread in Confined Spaces - Study of the Interactions between Flame and Surrounding Walls | Ya-Ting Liao, Paul Ferkul | Case Western Reserve University |
| 9 | 2018 | ISS: GOALI: Nonequilibrium Processing of Particle Suspensions with Thermal and Electrical Field Gradients | Boris Khusid, Alton Reich, Lou Kondic | New Jersey Institute of Technology |
| Paul Chaikin, Andrew Hollingsworth | New York University | |||
| 10 | 2019 | ISS: Collaborative Research: Interfacial bioprocessing of pharmaceuticals via the Ring-Sheared Drop (RSD) module aboard ISS | Amir Hirsa | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
| Juan Lopez | Arizona State University | |||
| 11 | 2019 | ISS: Collaborative Research: Examination of the Multi-physical Properties of Microgravity-synthesized Graphene Aerogels | Debbie Senesky | Stanford University |
| Roya Maboudian, Carlo Carraro | University of California, Berkeley | |||
| 12 | 2019 | ISS: A Microgravity Microfluidic Study of Packing and Particle Stabilization of Foams and Emulsions | Jing Fan, Charles Maldarelli | CUNY, The City College of New York |
| 13 | 2020 | ISS: A new paradigm for explaining catastrophic post-wildfire mudflows: transport phenomena and gravity-driven aggregation dynamics of hydrophobic particle-air-water mixtures | Ingrid Tomac | University of California, San Diego |
| 14 | 2020 | ISS: Synthesis of Electrically Conductive High-Temperature Composites Under Microgravity and Normal Gravity Conditions | Kathy Lu | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University |
| 15 | 2020 | ISS: Gravitational Effects on the Faraday Instability | Ranga Narayanan | University of Florida |
| 16 | 2020 | ISS: Dynamic Manipulation of Multi-Phase Flow Using Light-Responsive Surfactants for Phase-Change Applications | Yangying Zhu, Javier Read de Alaniz, Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| 17 | 2020 | ISS: Collaborative Research: Bimodal Colloidal Assembly, Coarsening and Failure: Decoupling Sedimentation and Particle Size Effects | Safa Jamali | Northeastern University |
| Ali Mohraz | University of California, Irvine | |||
| 18 | 2021 | ISS: Collaborative Research: Individual and Collective Behavior of Active Colloids in Microgravity | Alicia Boymelgreen | Florida International University |
| Jarrod Schiffbauer | Colorado Mesa University | |||
| 19 | 2021 | ISS: Thermophoresis in quiescent non-Newtonian fluids for bioseparations | James Gilchrist, Xuanhong Cheng, Kelly Schultz | Lehigh University |
| 20 | 2021 | ISS: Understanding the Gravity Effect on Flow Boiling Through High-Resolution Experiments and Machine Learning | Chen Li, Yan Tong | University of South Carolina at Columbia |
| 21 | 2021 | Collaborative Research: ISS: GOALI: Transients and Instabilities in Flow Boiling and Condensation Under Microgravity | Joel Plawsky, Corey Woodcock | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
| Boris Khusid, Thomas Conboy | New Jersey Institute of Technology | |||
| 22 | 2021 | ISS: Wicking in gel-coated tubes | Emilie Dressaire | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| 23 | 2021 | ISS: Flame Spread Response to Non-steady Airflow | James Urban | Worcester Polytechnic Institute |
| 24 | 2022 | Collaborative Research: ISS: Assessing the Effect of Microgravity on Growth and Properties of Metal-Organic Framework (MOF) Crystals | Debbie Senesky | Stanford University |
| Roya Maboudian, Carlo Carraro | University of California, Berkeley | |||
| 25 | 2022 | ISS: Plasmonic Bubble Enabled Nanoparticle Deposition under Micro-Gravity | Tengfei Luo | University of Notre Dame |
| 26 | 2022 | Collaborative Research: ISS: Revealing interfacial stability, thermal transport and transient effects in film evaporation in microgravity | James Hermanson | University of Washington |
| Aneet Dharmavaram Narendranath, Jeffrey Allen | Michigan Technological University | |||
| 27 | 2022 | Collaborative Research: ISS: Microgravity enabled studies of particle adsorption dynamics at fluid interfaces | Joelle Frechette | University of California, Berkeley |
| Michael Bevan | Johns Hopkins University | |||
| 28 | 2022 | ISS: Uncovering transient dynamics and equilibrium states of particle aggregates in fluids | Raul Cal | Portland State University |
| 29 | 2022 | Collaborative Research: ISS: Biofilm Inhibition with Germicidal Light Side-Emitted from Nano-enabled Flexible Optical Fibers in Water Systems | Paul Westerhoff, Jennifer Barrila, Cheryl Nickerson, Francois Perreault | Arizona State University |
| Robert McLean | Texas State University, San Marcos | |||
| 30 | 2022 | ISS: Transient Behavior of Flow Condensation and Its Impacts on Condensation Rate | Chen Li, Yan Tong | University of South Carolina at Columbia |
| 31 | 2022 | ISS: Active Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation in Microgravity | Zvonimir Dogic | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| 32 | 2023 | Collaborative Research: ISS: Probing Interfacial Instabilities in Flow Boiling and Condensation via Acoustic Signatures in Microgravity | Ying Sun, Ahmed Allam, Yongfeng Xu | University of Cincinnati |
| Han Hu | University of Arkansas | |||
| 33 | 2023 | Collaborative Research: ISS: Colloidal Microflyers: Observation and Characterization of (Self-) Thermophoresis through Air in Microgravity | Jeffrey Moran | George Mason University |
| David Warsinger | Purdue University | |||
| 34 | 2023 | ISS: Protein flow and gelation in the absence of solid-wall nucleation | Amir Hirsa, Patrick Underhill | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute |
| 35 | 2023 | Collaborative Research: ISS: Understanding thermal transport across a condensing film by conducting experiments in microgravity | Chirag Kharangate | Case Western Reserve University |
| Kuan-Lin Lee, Josh Charles | Advanced Cooling Technologies, Inc. | |||
| 36 | 2023 | ISS: Biofilm growth and architecture in porous media: exploring the effect of gravitational and interfacial forces on biofilm growth patterns | Dorthe Wildenschild, Tala Navab-Daneshmand | Oregon State University |
| 37 | 2023 | ISS: The Influence of Microgravity on Bacterial Transport and Pellicle Morphogenesis | Howard Stone | Princeton University |
Figure 1.
Photograph of the International Space Station. Image courtesy of NASA
Figure 2.
Intensified camera images of (a) a hot flame and (b) a cool flame. Figure recreated from Kim et al. (2023). Reprinted from Proceedings of the Combustion Institute, 39(2), Minhyeng Kim, Kendyl A. Waddell, Peter B. Sunderland, Vedha Nayagam, Dennis P. Stocker, Daniel L. Dietrich, Yiguang Ju, Forman A. Williams, Phillip Irace, and Richard L. Axelbaum, Spherical gas-fueled cool diffusion flames, 1647–1656, Copyright (2023), with permission from Elsevier.
Figure 3.
(Top) Comparison of steady flame profiles at different confined flame conditions using black anodized aluminum baffles or no baffles, with a flow speed of 6 cm/s. When there is no baffle, the flame is situated between a transparent polycarbonate window and a black duct wall on the right and left side of a flame, as imaged, respectively. (Bottom) Overlayed profiles of the outer edge and center profile for each of the five flames. This figure is recreated from Li et al. (2021). Reprinted from Combustion and Flame, 227, Li Yanjun, Liao Ya-Ting T., Paul V. Ferkul, Michael C. Johnston, and Charles Bunnell, Experimental study of concurrent-flow flame spread over thin solids in confined space in microgravity, 39–51, Copyright (2021), with permission from Elsevier.
Figure 4.
Heat transfer coefficient as a function of time for the sawtooth microstructure (blue) and flat baseline (orange) surfaces at various heat fluxes. The applied heat fluxes are 0.7 W/cm2 (left), 1.0 W/cm2 (center), and 1.3 W/cm2 (right). The inset images show high-speed image frames captured during the experiment. The nearly constant heat transfer coefficient circled at the end of the sawtooth microstructure experiment at 1.0 W/cm2 is due to the constant temperature difference maintained between the surface and the fluid. Figure reproduced from Sridhar et al. (2024). Reprinted from International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 222, Karthekeyan Sridhar, Vinod Narayanan, and Sushil H. Bhavnani, Enhanced heat transfer in microgravity from asymmetric sawtooth microstructure with engineered cavities, 125158, Copyright (2024), with permission from Elsevier.
Figure 5.
A comparison of the vapor slug dynamics on the flat baseline surface (left) and the 60°–30° sawtooth microstructure surface (right) in microgravity at a heat flux of 1.3W/cm2. For the flat surface, the vapor slug covers the entire field of view, and no liquid layer is visible between the slug and the surface. For the sawtooth microstructure surface, there is a visible liquid microlayer across the crests of the sawteeth. The liquid layer is highlighted in the sawtooth microstructure schematic (bottom-right). Figure reproduced from Sridhar et al. (2024). Reprinted from International Journal of Heat and Mass Transfer, 222, Karthekeyan Sridhar, Vinod Narayanan, and Sushil H. Bhavnani, Enhanced heat transfer in microgravity from asymmetric sawtooth microstructure with engineered cavities, 125158, Copyright (2024), with permission from Elsevier.
Figure 6.
Frequency as a function of static contact angle α (°) for several modes and substrates in microgravity. Experimental measurements are denoted by symbols, and theoretical predictions with free contact lines Λ = 0 are denoted by solid lines, where Λ is the mobility. The inset plot is the frequency for substrate P1 with pinned contact line Λ = ∞ (see McCraney et al., 2022b). The experimental error is ± 0.2 Hz, denoted by the symbol size. Reprinted figure with permission from J. McCraney, V. Kern, J.B. Bostwick, S. Daniel, and P.H. Steen, Physical Review Letters, 129, 084501, 2022. Copyright (2022) by the American Physical Society.
Figure 7.
Images of the experimental time evolution of drop coalescence overlayed with simulated predictions (red lines). The scale bars are 1 cm. This figure is reproduced from McCraney et al. (2022a). Reprinted from Physics of Fluids, 34, J. McCraney, J. Ludwicki, J. Bostwick, S. Daniel, and P. Steen, Coalescence-induced droplet spreading: Experiments aboard the International Space Station, 122110, Copyright (2022), with the permission of AIP Publishing