Optika Atmosfery i Okeana Journal

Vol. 23, issue 09, article # 12

Krymskii G. F., Kolosov V. V., Rostov A. P., Tyryshkin I. S. Experimental setup for investigating the water vapor nucleation in an artificial atmosphere. // Optika Atmosfery i Okeana. 2010. V. 23. No. 09. P. 820-825 [in Russian].
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Abstract:

In this work, an experimental setup is presented for investigating condensation of supersaturated water vapor in the presence of different aitken nuclei, electrostatic field, and electrojet current (electrons). The setup is designed on the basis of an atmospheric optical cell made of stainless steel in the form of a tube of 0.7 m in inner diameter and 112 m in length. There are cylinder chambers of larger sizes at the cell ends. The total volume of the cell is about 45 m³. Supersaturation of water vapor is performed by means of pressure release from a working chamber of a comparatively small volume to a vacuumized chamber of larger volume like in second type Wilson chambers. The formed drops are recorded by scattering of a laser beam radiation propagating through the working chamber. Pressure measuring in the working chamber allows us to determine the degree of vapor supersaturation, for which formation of scattering (i.e., sufficiently large) drops is observed.

Keywords:

oversaturated vapor, condensation, ionization, cloud formation