Fire in microgravity

"Nog" :

If heat cannot rise and draw in cool oxygenated air from the bottom it
seems to me that the fire would tend to smother itself.

You would think so, however in freefall the flame develops lots of free
radicals in the volume the flame occurs in. Thus even if the flame seems to
die out as soon as oxygen makes it into the flame zone the radicals will
burn, releasing heat that causes more free radicals to form. There is a lot
more than this going on, but that should give you an idea why the fire never
really goes out.

Earl Colby Pottinger

--
I make public email sent to me! Hydrogen Peroxide Rockets, OpenBeos,
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Michael Smith wrote:

Michael Smith
..who wishes he new how to quote in google groups

Instead of using the "Reply" at the foot of the
article you are answering, use the "Show Options"
at the top, and then the "Reply" option shown. It
is _not_ the same function.

Google software developers have a hole where their
common sense should sit, so they turn off the "Reply"
under "Show Options" for articles beyond a certain
age, which seems to be around 30 days.

FYI

xanthian.

Derek Lyons wrote:
"Greg D. Moore \(Strider\)" wrote:

Of course then there is the Mir fire, where the "candle" WAS the oxygen
source and as such had no trouble burning.

It wasn't really a 'candle' (per se), but a source of pressurized
oxidiser and fuel. (I.E. the published descriptions sound to me like
the O2 candle was acting as a (small) SRM.)


More about the nature of SFOGs is showing up!

In newsgroups: sci.space.station,
Craig Fink posted messages with the following links:

Message-Id:

Diagram

http://au.geocities.com/kosmonavtka2/images/a4.gif

from this page

http://au.geocities.com/kosmonavtka2...ss.html#oxygen


Message-Id:

LiClO4 (Lithium Perchlorate)

http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/l7000.htm

LiCl (Lithium Cloride)

http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/LI/lithium_chloride.html


Thanks, Craig!

/dps