The C-ICME Lab is developing a vacuum Electrostatic Levitation (ESL) system for the experimental determination of difficult to measure material properties, such as high temperature and liquid phase thermophysical properties of metal alloys. A Machine Vision based control system for monitoring the high voltage amplifiers that supplies voltage to the electrodes is being developed. Finite element simulations of the electrostatic field required to levitate small spherical samples are being conducted for specific electrode configurations and metal alloy compositions to aid in simulating the control actions needed to stably levitate the samples. Simulation efforts include the melting of levitated metallic samples when heated by a simulated laser heat source with a Gaussian energy distribution and perturbing the sample by voltage excitation.
