Bascom Hunter Technologies, Inc. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: N231-064

Description

Latent heat loads, associated with the condensation of water vapor in outside air, impose up to 40% added cooling demand on naval vessel air conditioning systems, which in turn significantly increases the power consumption of the system.  This Technical Proposal is to develop and verify a novel means of reducing the latent loads to significantly reduce the power consumption of ship-based air conditioning systems. The design presented herein couples several novel technologies to remove moisture from local ambient (maritime) air before it is introduced into the air conditioning system to provide fresh air ventilation to inhabited compartments.  These technologies are: Nano-scale porous titanium membranes to selectively separate water vapor from dry air Assembly and manufacture of a high-density membrane tube array that minimizes the footprint of the water separator with low air-side pressure loss A high-efficiency, variable speed vacuum pump to remove collected water vapor for discharge outside of the air conditioning system In Phase I  Bascom Hunter, an aerospace/defense manufacturer of high-efficiency thermal management components and systems, will partner with ADMA Products, a specialty manufacturer of advanced engineering materials, to design and test a proof-of-concept water removal system.  The design will consider the unique requirements and constraints imposed by installation of the system in a shipboard environment, including corrosion resistance, tolerance of potential contaminants in the fresh air intake stream, and applicable shock and vibration loads.  Later Phases will optimize the design based on the subscale testing, and evaluate the full scale system over the full range of expected operating conditions and environmental loads.