Granular Anisotropic Gases in Drop Tower Experiments
The GAGa DropT team is composed of three PhD students studying at Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg (Germany). They have investigated the behaviour of granular anisotropic gases in microgravity during the 2012 Drop Your Thesis! campaign. Granular gases are loose, agitated ensembles of grains found in places ranging from sandstorms, to avalanches, to the rings of Saturn and the asteroid belt.
Chemical signalling in roots under microgravity conditions
The Falling Roots team comprises two students from the University of Florence, Italy, who were selected to develop and perform a microgravity experiment during ESA's Drop your Thesis! 2011 campaign. Their experiment is a continuation of their investigation into how biological processes are affected by microgravity and hypergravity.
Bubble Jet Impingement in Microgravity Conditions
A group of three students (BubJet team) from Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) has developed an experimental setup to investigate the collision of bubble jets in microgravity conditions. The experiment has be carried out in October 2010 at the ZARM drop tower in Bremen, Germany. The results could help to understand the behaviour of two-phase flows in a low gravity environment. In particular, the effects of gas/liquid flow rates and separation between jets on the bubble coalescence probability will be investigated.
New PDLC materials obtained from dispersion of liquid crystal under microgravity conditions
A group of four students (Physics Addicted team) from the Physics Department of the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Porto (FCUP) has used the ZARM drop tower in Bremen, Germany, to successfully conduct an experiment to study polymerisation of different types of Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystals (PDLCs) under microgravity conditions. The polymerisation was achieved by using ultraviolet (UV) illumination.