Structure of Flame Balls at Low Lewis-Number (SOFBALL): Preliminary Results From the STS-83 and STS-94 Space Flight Experiments

Results from the Structure Of Flame Balls At Low Lewis-number (SOFBALL) space flight experiment conducted on the MSL-1 Space Shuttle missions are reported. Several new insights were obtained, including: much lower buoyancy-induced drift speed than anticipated pre-flight; repulsion of adjacent flame balls due to their mutual interaction; remarkable sensitivity of flame balls to small accelerations resulting from Orbiter attitude control maneuvers; and very similar net heat release for all flame balls in all mixtures tested. Comparison of experimental results to computational predictions reveals limitations in current models of H2-02 chemistry for very lean mixtures. It is discussed how the results of these space experiments may provide an improved understanding of the interactions of the two most important phenomena in combusting materials, namely chemical reaction and transport processes, in the unequivocally simplest possible configuration.