The Zero-Boil-Off Tank (ZBOT) Experiment, Part 1

The Zero-Boil-Off Tank (ZBOT) Experiments are a series of small scale tank pressurization and pressure control experiments aboard the International Space Station (ISS) that use a transparent volatile simulant fluid in a transparent sealed tank to delineate various fundamental fluid flow, heat and mass transport, and phase change phenomena that control storage tank pressurization and pressure control in microgravity. The hardware for ZBOT-1 flew to ISS on the OA-7 flight in April 2017. Operations began in September 2017 and were completed by December 2017, encompassing more than 100 tests. Hand-in-Hand with the experiment a state-of-the-art two-phase CFD model of the storage tank pressurization & pressure control is also developed and validated against the experimental results.