High-frequency driven capillary flows speed up the gas-liquid phase transition in zero-gravity conditions
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Updated: Aug 16, 2026

Reduced-gravity Environment Hardware Demonstrations of a Prototype Miniaturized Flow Cytometer and Companion Microfluidic Mixing Technology
Published on: November 13, 2014
Daniel Beysens1, Denis Chatain, Pierre Evesque
1ESEME, Service des Basses Températures, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique, 17 rue des Martyrs, 38054 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
Abstract:
Under weightlessness conditions, the phase transition of fluids is driven only by slow capillary flows. We investigate the effect of high-frequency vibrations to reproduce some features of gravity effects and show that such vibrations can greatly modify the phase transition kinetics. The investigation is performed in H2 near its critical point (critical temperature 33 K) where critical slowing down enables the phase transition process to be carefully studied. Gravity effects are compensated in a strong magnetic field gradient.
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