Rapid Expansion Aerosol Chamber for Droplet Nucleation in Cloud Microphysics
A laboratory expansion-chamber facility that nucleates cloud droplets via a controlled sudden pressure drop and adiabatic cooling while independently setting the water-vapor saturation ratio, seeding-aerosol population, and turbulent mixing. Students learn how expansion-chamber thermodynamics reproduces cloud-forming conditions, why total droplet number scales linearly with seeding-aerosol concentration while mean droplet size falls off through competition for available vapor, and how such an apparatus links aerosol loading to droplet size distributions in warm clouds.
Droplet Nucleation In a Rapid Expansion Aerosol Chamber Droplet Nucleation In a Rapid Expansion
Primary research (physics.flu-dyn; Rev. Sci. Instrum. 96, 055104, 2025). Presents REACh, the Rapid Expansion Aerosol Chamber: an intermediate-size (~0.14 m3) laboratory facility that induces liquid-d…