G-Jitter Effects in Protein Crystal Growth - A Numerical Study

Abstract

The impact of spacecraft acceleration environment on Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) is studied. A brief overview of the Space Shuttle acceleration environment is provided followed by a simple scaling procedure used to obtain estimates of the flow and concentration field characteristics in PCG. A detailed two-dimensional numerical model is then used to simulate the PCG system response to different disturbance scenarios; viz. residual g effects, impulse type disturbances and oscillatory inputs. The results show that PCG is susceptible to g-jitter and is a good candidate for vibration isolation