Laucks Foundation Research

Research Facilities and Equipment

SPACE

The Laucks Foundation research facility has approximately 2000 square feet of laboratory and office space. The laboratory is equipped with instrumentation that includes a low-temperature electrodynamic balance for growth rate measurements and habit observations, a droplet free-fall freezing tube apparatus for nucleation studies, and an optical cryostat for observing the freezing of ice surfaces. The laboratory is equipped with optical tables for vibration isolation, electronics and computers for temperature, pressure and humidity monitoring, and CCD video cameras with telemicroscopic lenses for
imaging.

LOW TEMPERATURE EDB

The low temperature electrodynamic balance, capable of observing crystal growth and morphology changes, uses an internally mounted diffusion chamber to set the temperature and supersaturation conditions near the levitated crystal to those that simulate cirrus conditions. A ULT-80 temperature-controlled bath/circulator unit provides cooling down to -60 C. The levitation electronics and temperature and humidity monitoring electronics are computer interfaced via Labview. Imaging for the EDB experiments is done using two digital CCD video cameras with telemicroscopic lenses.

FREEZING TUBE

The freezing tube with droplet-on-demand system is available for assessment of ice nucleation frozen fraction curves from both homogeneous and heterogeneous droplets along with light scattering and droplet imaging of freezing. The optical cryostat contains a sample stage cooled with thermoelectric coolers both for temperature and humidity control.

COMPUTING

Computing facilities at Laucks Foundation research consists mainly of PC and Macintosh computers used for data acquisition and analysis. A RAID computer with 2 TB of disk space is available for modeling, data acquisition, and processing of high resolution images.

SHOP

Laucks Foundation Research also has a 1600 square foot machine and electronics shop on site. Our on-site machine shop is well equipped with lathe, CNC milling machine, plasma cutter, and welding equipment. Our on-site electronics shop is available to assist with instrumentation development. A cold room is also available for use.