Physicochemical Modeling of the Process of Vibroturbulization and its Practical Use for the Intensification of Existing Terrestrial and Implementation of New Microgravity Technologies

Abstract

Previously conducted experimental studies have established that in a certain frequency range and upon reaching a certain value of the amplitude of water oscillations in a sealed vessel with an above water surface air shell, subjected to vertical vibration of the vibrator, a resonant phenomenon, called vibroturbulization, leading to intensive mixing of media with different densities, occurs. The conducted studies were purely experimental in nature and could not reveal the physicochemical mechanism of creation, the course of the vibroturbulization process, calculate in advance its optimal physicochemical parameters for the precise, rather than experimental, use of this process to obtain aerosols, suspensions from absolutely immiscible components. The paper presents the results of physicochemical modeling of the process of vibroturbulization, explaining the occurrence and stable course of the process as a result of the effect of vertical vibration on water in a hermetic vessel with an above water surface air shell, which made it possible to calculate the main physical parameters at which this process begins and proceeds stably: vibration frequency, start time process and the volume of above water surface air shell, leading to intense, turbulent mixing, contained in the vessel multi-phase mixture. The physicochemical model of the vibroturbulization process permitted to predict the course of the process under microgravity conditions. The obtained results, experimentally confirmed both under terrestrial conditions and under conditions of short-term weightlessness, during flight tests on board the IL-76K flying laboratory, permitted to improve existing earth technologies: the intensification of the flotation process in mineral processing, the obtaining advanced gas-filled materials, ceramic materials, nanomaterials, the creation of completely new microgravity technologies: the degassing of spacecraft jet fuel and crystalline solution or melt to obtain advanced crystals, the obtaining advanced gas-filled materials and nanomaterials, using the isotropic property of microgravity and process of vibroturbulization. The obtained results permit to calculate the process modes and use them to obtain any homogeneous multi-phase mixture in each specific case, both on the Earth and under microgravity conditions.