ENHANCED CAPILLARY RISE OF WETTING LIQUIDS IN REDUCED GRAVITATIONAL SHIELDING UNDER MICROGRAVITY CONDITIONS

Abstract

We study the capillary rise of wetting in liquids by slightly modifying Ponomarenko’s result, a recently derived and observed t^1/3 law, without omitting the corresponding gravity term and therefore we find h_new (t)≅0.9085h_Pon (t) instead, which corresponds to a 9% difference. Furthermore, in order to examine the effect of corrected gravity, we extend the result on the surface of a planetary body by correcting the gravitational acceleration for its oblateness coefficient and rotation. We find that experiments that take place on the equator result in highest capillary heights, than those at mid latitudes and the poles. Similarly, analyzing the effect of reduced gravitational shielding on the capillary rise under conditions of microgravity in experiments aboard orbiting spacecraft, we find that equatorial circular orbits exhibit the highest capillary heights, where equatorial elliptical orbits of large eccentricities exhibit the smallest capillary heights. Finally, we calculate the rate of change of the meniscus height in the time domain, for the different laboratory conditions on the surface of the Earth and in space and as example. As an example we say that laboratory sites at the equator will exhibit larges time rates of change for the meniscus height. Similarly, for experiments above a spacecraft we find that circular equatorial orbits exhibit the highest time rates of change, where elliptical orbits exhibit smaller time rates that reduce as the eccentricity increases.