Volume 4, Number 3 July/August 1996
An innovative two-phase flow meter that measures the quality and velocity of cryogenic fuels loaded onto the Space Shuttle is being developed for commercial use through the first cooperative venture of its kind. NASA's Kennedy Space Center and Air Products and Chemicals Inc. of Allentown, Pennsylvania, have signed a one-year agreement to jointly develop the two-phase flow meter technology into a cryogenic flow/quality measuring device. Many industries, including cryogenic fuels, petroleum, electricity and food processing, may use this technology.
"This is our first cooperative agreement where NASA developmental funds are provided to a for-profit organization. Both NASA and Air Products will provide funding, manpower and facilities to develop prototypes of the new technology," said Kristen Riley of Kennedy's Technology Programs and Commercialization Office. The project is part of NASA's Dual-Use Program, in which space program technology is jointly developed with an industry partner for use by both the space agency and the commercial market. "This meter was conceived at Kennedy to provide a more accurate means to measure the flow of two-phase cryogenic fluids as they are loaded about the Space Shuttle before launch," said Kennedy Lead Project Engineer Rudy Werlink.
The two-phase flow meter technology, developed by Kennedy Space Center, was created because no existing flow meter without moving parts could measure both the fill rate and filling efficiency of cryogenic propellant loaded onto the Space Shuttle. Cryogenic fuels such as liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen must be cold to be liquids instead of gases when they are transferred to the Space Shuttle's external tank.
This sensor, when located in the fuel transfer pipes, saves time and cryogenic propellant because it determines when the fill lines have nearly 100 percent liquid. The fill lines must have nearly 100 percent liquid to restart filling the external tank if the fuel loading process is interrupted unexpectedly. This information is especially important in determining optimum minimum recovery times; educated guesses determined these times prior to the flow/quality meter.
"Existing sensors do not have the rapid response and sensitivity required to correlate the data of a flowing mixture. The fact that this flow meter will have that capability makes this design innovative," Werlink said.
Air Products and Chemicals, a major supplier of industrial gas and related equipment, chemicals, and environmental and energy systems, supplies NASA with the Space Shuttle's cyrogenic fuels. Paul Mattiola, an equipment technology engineer at Air Products and Chemicals, said that many of the company's customers in the food processing, metals processing and rubber and plastics industries use liquid nitrogen because of its refrigeration and cooling capabilities. These customers primarily would use the flow meter for mass flow measurements although they also need quality and flow velocity information, according to Mattiola. "The two-phase flow meter is a very important instrument for accurately measuring liquid nitrogen. Accurate measurements of the amount of coolant a company is using are very important to the company's process control and to the quality of the end product," Mattiola said.
Werlink said that the flow meter could have several commercial applications, including measuring the flow rate and dryness (quality) of vapor for steam plants and electricity plants, the maximum velocity of a solid/water mixture to determine optimum sterilization times for food processing, the fill level or overfill condition of fuels stored in modular cryogenic tanks and humidity in commercial processes where humidity control is critical.
Werlink initially conceived the design for the flow/quality meter in 1993. Dr. Bob Younquist of I-Net Inc., an engineering support contractor at Kennedy, led the developmental efforts on the electronic control system and collaborated with Werlink on the physical design.
For opportunities to participate in future Dual-Use Program projects, watch for announcements in theCommerce Business Daily and on the Kennedy Space Center's Technology Home Page at: http://technology.ksc.nasa.gov/
Additional Information
The NASA Microgravity Science and Applications Division sponsored the developmental work on the optical instrument in the article "Faster, Truer Research With World's Strongest X-Rays," which appeared in the May/June 1996 issue of this publication.
For more information on the product, contact Paul Mattiola at Air Products and Chemicals Inc.
Phone: 610/481-2525, E-mail: mattiopa@ttown.apci.com
Please mention that you read about it in Innovation.
Curator: Joe Goldfus
