Renee Juhans Headquarters, Washington, DC January 5, 2000 (Phone: 202/358-1712)
RELEASE: 00-2

NASA ANNOUNCES RESEARCH GRANTS IN MICROGRAVITY FLUID PHYSICS

NASA has selected 75 researchers to receive grants totaling approximately $25 million over four years to conduct microgravity fluid physics research on Earth and in space. This research is focused on obtaining beneficial applications in space-based health and life support systems, and in earth-based systems. Sponsored by NASA's Office of Life and Microgravity Science and Applications, this research offers investigators the opportunity to utilize a low-gravity environment to enhance the understanding of fundamental physical and chemical processes associated with fluid physics. Researchers will use NASA's microgravity research facilities such as drop tubes, drop towers, aircraft flying parabolic trajectories and sounding rockets, with the flight-definition investigators working toward experiments on space-flight test beds such as the International Space Station and Space Shuttle. Sixty-one of the grants are to conduct ground-based research, while the remaining 14 are flight-definition efforts. Twenty-nine of these grants are for continuation of work currently being funded by NASA, but the majority -- 46 -- represent new research efforts. NASA received 297 proposals in response to its research announcement in this area. These proposals were all peer-reviewed by scientific and technical experts from academia, government and industry. In addition, those proposals selected for flight definition were reviewed in terms of engineering feasibility by a team from NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH. A list of awardees (by state), their institutions, and research titles can be found on the Internet at: ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/pressrel/2000/00-002a.txt

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From the Yale Engineering Bulletin 464
January 10, 2000

NASA chooses three of ours
Prof. Robert Apfel, ME, Prof. Marshall Grant, ChE, and Prof. Michael Loewenberg, ChE, were selected by NASA to conduct microgravity fluid physics research in a low-gravity environment to further the understanding of fundamental physical and chemical processes associated with fluid physics. NASA received 297 proposals and had them reviewed by scientific and technical experts from academia, government, and industry; proposals selected for flight definition were also reviewed by a team from NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH, for engineering feasibility. The $25-million, four year NASA project awarded grants to 75 researchers in 25 states, including to three from Yale and one from UCONN in Connecticut.

Prof. Apfel's research title: "Studies of the Dynamics, Control, and Evaporation of Three-Dimensional Droplet Arrays and Clusters," Prof. Grant's: "Effect of Structure-Dependent Interactions on the Formation of Colloidal Aggregates and Nuclei," Prof. Loewenberg's: "Flows of Wet Foams and Concentrated Emulsions."

NASA press release, below: