Testing of Commercial Hollow Fiber Membranes for Spacesuit Water Membrane Evaporator

Bue, Grant C.; Trevino, Luis; Tsioulos, Gus; Hanford, Anthony J.

doi:10.4271/2009-01-2427

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 4 publications

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“…The flow rate and the heat rejection dip in synchrony presumably because of the displacement of the coolant with the air injection. This is also possibly due to partial blocking of the pores with air-note the decline in the vapor backpressure that starts and the beginning of the 5 cm 3 and ends following the transient response to the 50 cm 3 injection, see the right angle arrows in Fig 11. In the case of the fully closed valve positions, the large injections resulted in backpressure that was retained until the valve was reopened (data not shown).…”

Section: A Performance Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unfortunately, the sample rate of these tests were too slow to catch the transients effectively, but in one of the test series the transients were partially captured. Figure 11 captures some of the transient responses of the 10 cm 3 and 50 cm 3 bubble injections from the 20 °C fully open test series. These transients occurred within a 40 second period following the injection.…”

Section: A Performance Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It was thought that handling of the water without extreme precautions would provide microbes as it had in previous testing. 3 Thus, all water was passed through a biofilter for both the circulating water and the resupply tank. …”

Section: Contamination Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Air bubbles were injected into the sample port, first in the amount of 5 cm 3 , then 10 cm 3 , and finally 20 cm 3 . After each quantity was injected into the coolant stream, the performance of the HoFi SWME was monitored until performance stabilized.…”

Section: Performance Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A n analysis of test data showed that eight layer stacks of the HoFi sheets that had good exposure on each side of the stack would evaporate water with high efficiency. 3,4 A design that has 14,300 tubes, with 18 cm of exposed tubes between headers has been built and tested that meets the size, weight, and performance requirements of the SWME. This full-scale prototype consists of 30 stacks, each of which are formed into a chevron shape and separated by spacers and organized into three sectors of ten nested stacks.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Hollow Fiber Spacesuit Water Membrane Evaporator Development and Testing for Advanced Spacesuits.

Bue

Trevino

Tsioulos

et al. 2010

40th International Conference on Environmental Systems

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The spacesuit water membrane evaporator (SWME) is being developed to perform the thermal control function for advanced spacesuits to take advantage of recent advances in micropore membrane technology in providing a robust heat-rejection device that is potentially less sensitive to contamination than is the sublimator. Principles of a sheet membrane SWME design were demonstrated using a prototypic test article that was tested in a vacuum chamber at JSC in July 1999. The Membrana Celgard X50-215 microporous hollow fiber (HoFi) membrane was selected after recent contamination tests as the most suitable candidate among commercial alternatives for HoFi SWME prototype development. A design that grouped the fiber layers into stacks, which were separated by small spaces and packaged into a cylindrical shape, was developed into a full-scale prototype consisting 14,300 tube bundled into 30 stacks, each of which are formed into a chevron shape and separated by spacers and organized into three sectors of ten nested stacks. Vacuum chamber testing has been performed characterize heat rejection as a function of inlet water temperature and water vapor backpressure and to show contamination resistance to the constituents expected to be found in potable water produced by the distillation processes. Other tests showed the tolerance to freezing and suitability to reject heat in a Mars pressure environment.

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Section: A Performance Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: A Performance Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Contamination Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%