Journal
ACTA ASTRONAUTICA
Volume 48, Issue 2-3, Pages 169-180Publisher
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/S0094-5765(00)00154-5
Keywords
microgravity; orbital experiments; gravitational sensitivity; interferogram; polyacrylamide gel; photopolymerization; pion-M shadow device; gel specimen; inhomogeneities of final structure; polymer properties; interferograms; electrophoretic matrices; Svetoblok setup; protein fractions; free space
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The paper briefly reviews the results of orbital experiments and terrestrial simulations performed by research teams from Russia, USA, Uzbekistan, Italy, and Germany to investigate the basic mechanisms of gravitational polymerization sensitivity. The occurrence of convective instability, the evolution of convective flows and the front instability are analyzed for different frontal polymerization processes. It is shown that these effects are responsible for inhomogeneity of the polymer synthesized in terrestrial conditions. The different ways of instability suppression and polymerization control are proposed. The possibilities of synthesising more homogeneous polymer materials in space compared to terrestrial specimens are demonstrated. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
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