User Stories

To ensure astronaut safety on space missions, it is necessary to routinely revitalize the atmosphere in manned spacecraft. Jim Knox, Rob Coker, and a team of engineers at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center have developed a water-saving system called an Isothermal Bulk Dessicant (IBD). The IBD is used to collect water from the atmosphere for re-use. It consists of packed beds lined with silica gel; as air flows through, water is adsorbed onto the silica gel and then transferred back to the atmosphere through desorption once the air has continued on to a CO2 removal system. Using a COMSOL Multiphysics model, Knox and Coker simulated the gas flow and heat transfer in a four-bed IBD. They tracked the flow rates, pressure conditions, and water concentration as water adsorbed and desorbed. Their model predicted that the IBD successfully saved 85% of the water from the atmosphere. As they use COMSOL to optimize their designs, they hope to offer NASA integrated systems that will enable farther space travel than ever before.