Containerless Processing and Levitation
What can be done with melts and liquids that never touch a container, and why does orbit make it easier?
Chapter summary
on Earth, any molten material must sit in a crucible or be held by a strong levitating field that fights gravity; the crucible contaminates the melt and triggers crystallisation at its walls.
Key takeaways
- 1
In orbit, a small electromagnetic, electrostatic or acoustic field is enough to position a sample, so materials can be melted and cooled without contact.
- 2
That allows precise measurement of the properties of very hot or reactive melts, deep undercooling below normal freezing points and the formation of glasses and metastable phases.
- 3
It is a powerful research tool that has fed industrial modelling; as a production method for Earth it is limited by value per kilogram (Chapter 30).
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