Controlling the Water Availability from a Ceramic Tube System Subjected to Non-Standard Gravities

The Porous Ceramic Tube - Nutrient Delivery System (PCT-NDS) offers means to control water availability to plants under non-standard gravities. It is hypothesized that control can be obtained by applying suction pressure within the ceramic tubes. The research objectives include verifying the presented control equation for the PCT-NDS under micro-(less than 1 g) and hyper- (greater than 1 g) gravities. Experiments were conducted on a KC-135 subjecting the system to near-zero to 2 g's and to sustained hyper-gravities upto 10 g's using a centrifuge. Results indicated that the water availability can be controlled through applied suction pressure.