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Testing of Commercial Hollow Fiber Membranes for Space Suit Water Membrane EvaporatorThree commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) hollow fiber (HoFi) membrane evaporators, modified for low pressure, were tested in a vacuum chamber at pressures below 33 pascals as potential space suit water membrane evaporator (SWME) heat rejection technologies. Water quality was controlled in a series of 25 tests, first simulating potable water reclaimed from waste water and then changing periodically to simulate the ever concentrating make-up of the circulating coolant over that is predicted over the course of 100 EVAs. Two of the systems, comprised of non-porous tubes with hydrophilic molecular channels as the water vapor transport mechanism, were severely impacted by the increasing concentrations of cations in the water. One of the systems, based on hydrophobic porous polypropylene tubes was not affected by the degrading water quality, or the presence of microbes. The polypropylene system, called SWME 1, was selected for further testing. An inverse flow configuration was also tested with SWME 1, with vacuum exposure on the inside of the tubes, provided only 20% of the performance of the standard configuration. SWME 1 was also modified to block 50% and 90% of the central tube layers, and tested to investigate performance efficiency. Performance curves were also developed in back-pressure regulation tests, and revealed important design considerations arising from the fully closed valve. SWME 1 was shown to be insensitive to air bubbles injected into the coolant loop. Development and testing of a full-scale prototype based on this technology and these test results is in progress.
Document ID
20090015362
Acquisition Source
Johnson Space Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Bue, Grant C.
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Trevino, Luis
(NASA Johnson Space Center Houston, TX, United States)
Tsioulos, Gus
(Wyle Labs., Inc. Houston, TX, United States)
Hanford, Anthony
(Jacobs Technologies Engineering Science Contract Group Houston, TX, United States)
Date Acquired
August 24, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2009
Subject Category
Fluid Mechanics And Thermodynamics
Report/Patent Number
JSC-18054
09ICES-0329
Meeting Information
Meeting: 39th International Conference on Environmental Systems
Location: Savannah, GA
Country: United States
Start Date: July 12, 2009
End Date: July 16, 2009
Sponsors: Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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