A major reason to conduct solidification experiments in space is that the unique conditions accessible in reduced-gravity allow investigation of fundamental questions while limiting the influence of sedimentation or buoyancy-induced convection. When processing metallic alloys using containerless electromagnetic levitation, convection may be controlled over a wide range, spanning the laminar-turbulent transition, by proper selection of facility operating conditions. By measuring key thermophysical properties such as density, viscosity, and electrical resistivity on-orbit, the specific sample being processed may be characterized and the results used to update pre-mission magnetohydrodynamic model predictions of induced stirring within the droplet. Thus, convection becomes a controlled experimental parameter that can be applied to an investigation of how stirring influences the metastable-to-stable transformation during rapid solidification of FeCrNi alloys. For these alloys, the incubation or delay time is observed to be a weak function of undercooling and a strong function of applied convection.

Transitions from the liquid to the solid state of matter are omnipresent. They form a crucial step in the industrial solidification of metallic alloy melts and are greatly influenced by the thermophysical properties of the melt. Knowledge of the thermophysical properties of liquid metallic alloys is necessary in order to gain a tight control over the solidification pathway, and over the obtained material structure of the solid. Measurements of thermophysical properties on ground are often difficult, or even impossible, since liquids are strongly influenced by earth’s gravity. Another problem is the reactivity of melts with container materials, especially at high temperature. Finally, deep undercooling, necessary to understand nucleus formation and equilibrium as well as non-equilibrium solidification, can only be achieved in a containerless environment. Containerless experiments in microgravity allow precise benchmark measurements of thermophysical properties. The electromagnetic levitator ISS-EML on the International Space Station (ISS) offers perfect conditions for such experiments. This way, data for process simulations is obtained, and a deeper understanding of nucleation, crystal growth, microstructural evolution, and other details of the transformation from liquid to solid can be gained. Here, we address the scientific questions in detail, show highlights of recent achievements, and give an outlook on future work.

Rare earth and barium titanates are useful as ferroelectric, dielectric, and optical materials. Measurements of their thermophysical properties in the liquid state can help guide melt processing technologies for their manufacture and advance understanding of fragile liquids' behavior and glass formation. Here, we report the density, thermal expansion, viscosity, and surface tension of molten BaTi2O5, BaTi4O9, and 83TiO2-17RE2O3 (RE = La or Nd). Measurements were made using electrostatic levitation and droplet oscillation techniques in microgravity, which provide access to quiescent liquid droplets and deep supercooling of 510–815 K below the equilibrium melting points. Densities were measured over 900–2400 K. Viscosities were similar for all four compositions, increasing from ∼10 mPa s near 2100 K to ∼30 mPa s near 1750 K. Surface tensions were 450–490 dyn cm−1 for the rare earth titanates and 383–395 dyn cm−1 for the barium titanates; surface tensions of all compositions had small or negligible temperature dependence over 1700–2200 K. For solids recovered after melt quenching, x-ray microtomography revealed the fracture mechanics in crystalline products and minimal internal porosity in glass products, likely arising from entrapped gas bubbles. Internal microstructures were generally similar for products processed either in microgravity or in a terrestrial aerodynamic levitator.

The thermophysical properties of liquid germanium were recently measured both in parabolic flight experiments and on the ISS in the ISS-EML facility. The viscosity measurements differed between the reduced gravity experiments and the literature values. Since the oscillating drop method has been widely used in EML, further exploration into this phenomenon was of interest. Models of the magnetohydrodynamic flow indicated that turbulence was present during the measurement in the ISS-EML facility, which accounts for the observed difference.

Under terrestrial conditions, liquids are stirred by Marangoni and gravity-induced flows. A nucleation model that couples the stochastic fluxes of long-range diffusion and interfacial attachment [the Coupled-Flux Model (CFM)] predicts that the nucleation kinetics in metallic liquids should be faster with increased stirring for cases where long-range diffusion is required for nucleation due to an additional mechanism for the transportation of atoms to the nucleating cluster. Unfortunately, few experimental studies of stirring effects exist for metallic liquids. Here, the effect of stirring on hundreds of nucleation cycles is presented for a Zr80Pt20 eutectic liquid using the quiescent environment of ground-based electrostatic levitation and the controlled stirred environment of the electromagnetic levitation facility on the International Space Station. While the Zr80Pt20 liquid should solidify to a eutectic phase mixture, ground-based synchrotron x-ray studies of the crystallizing liquid presented here show that primary nucleation is to an icosahedral phase (i-phase). Approximately 5 s later, the i-phase/liquid transforms into the equilibrium eutectic phase mixture. Since Zr80Pt20 is the eutectic composition, little effect of stirring is expected since diffusion only occurs over short distances during crystallization. Stirring should also have little effect on the nucleation of the i-phase, which has a similar composition to that of the liquid. In contrast, the experimental results show that stirring slows down the nucleation kinetics of the i-phase. However, why the nucleation is heterogeneous, not homogeneous, is yet unknown; a few plausible explanations are suggested for this and the mechanism for the decrease in the nucleation kinetics with stirring.