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Carl Merrigan and Brett Whisler
Department of Physics and Mathematics
William Jewell College
Advisor: Patrick H. Bunton
Abstract
Gradients in chemical potential or temperature at an immiscible interface can lead to fluid flow. However, fluid flow due to gradients at a miscible interface has never been observed due to the small effective interfacial tension that exists there. In fact, only recently has conclusive evidence for such a transient effective interfacial tension been demonstrated. A miscible interface will be formed by using a phase transition at the upper critical solution temperature of isobutyric acid (IBA) and water. Below 26.3°C IBA/water solutions exist as two distinct phases with an immiscible interface. When heated above this temperature, the interface becomes miscible. Such an immiscible interface will be established below 26.3°C. Once in a low-gravity environment, the interface will be heated above the transition temperature simultaneously forming the miscible interface and the temperature gradient along the interface. The flow will be monitored by passing a two-dimensional laser sheet perpendicular to the interface which illuminates microspheres in the solution. Resulting flow will be monitored using video cameras. The experiment is manifested to fly on Blue Origin's New Shepard craft.
Brett Richard Whisler is from Topeka, KS and is a second year Physics major at William Jewell College in Liberty, MO. He has been an Outward Bound Delegate and spoke at the 2nd annual Next Generation Suborbital Research Conference in March of 2011. He plans to earn a PhD in Physics. He would like to work for a suborbital spacecraft company and become an astronaut.
Carl Merrigan is second year student at William Jewell College where he is majoring in Physics and Oxbridge: History of Ideas. He is from St. Joseph, MO. His goal is to obtain a Ph.D. in Physics and to do research in an area of theoretical physics.
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