Analysis Of MSL-1 Measurements Of Heptane Droplet Combustion

A droplet combustion experiment (DCE) was performed on the MSL-1 mission of the Space Shuttle Columbia. There were two flights of this mission - STS-83 in April of 1997 and STS-94 in July of 1997. The reflight occurred because a fuel-cell power problem onboard the shuttle forced an early termination of the first flight; this was the only shuttle mission to be flown twice. DCE data were obtained during both flights. A fiber-supported droplet combustion (FSDC) experiment also was run on STS-94. This smaller 'glovebox' experiment, which investigated the combustion of fiber-supported droplets in Spacelab cabin air, had previously flown on the first United States Microgravity Laboratory (USML-1) mission of STS-73, but successful measurements with heptane as the fuel in this experiment were first obtained on STS-94. Although heptane droplet combustion in convective flow also was studied on STS-94, only data without forced convection are considered here. The objective of the present paper is to analyze the results on heptane droplet combustion in quiescent atmospheres.