Technology Transfer

Turbo Pipe Cleaner Licensed

TITUSVILLE INDUSTRIES, INC., OF TITUSVILLE, Florida, recently received a nonexclusive license from NASA's Kennedy Space Center to develop, design, market and sell a patented Turbine-Driven Brush Pipe Cleaner based on a NASA-developed innovation. Titusville Industries is designing a creative method for the internal cleaning of fluid pipe systems.

The pipe cleaner is designed to use hydraulic force to spin an internal turbine blade connected to a common brush assembly that rotates and cleans the inside of commercial and/or industrial pipes and tubes. Tom La Forge, Senior Vice President of Titusville Industries, states that the real innovation exists in its capacity to clean pipes and tubes at right angles and 45-degree turns while utilizing its own force generated by the natural physics of water. The technology was successfully demonstrated at Kennedy in a controlled test facility.

NASA engineering developed the pipe cleaner to provide a practical method to clean water lines and pipes that contain solvent residues compatible with water. It replaced existing costly and time-consuming pipe-cleaning processes. It is viable for cleaning processes in which chemicals and solvents are delivered through pipes to vats that contain flight hardware plumbing and fittings that need to be cleaned to stringent standards. The cleaner contains a small turbine and bearing assembly that uses upstream pressure of the water-cleaning solution to spin a standard circular brush to clean the inside of pipes. The turbine brush uses the fluid flow for power, and a thin cable held upstream in tension controls brush position, thus eliminating mechanical drive cables or pressure lines used to power previous systems. The brush is pulled upstream by the cable, enabling the same pipe surfaces to be repeatedly cleaned without changing the fluid flow direction.

Titusville Industries is a tenant of the Florida/NASA Business Incubator Center, which facilitated the license agreement between NASA and Titusville Industries. The center is providing business development and a marketing strategy for commercializing the product.

Titusville Industries is developing a prototype two-inch turbine blade/brush assembly that is being evaluated by the Mechanical, Materials & Engineering Department at the University of Central Florida. The new design provides for a common shaft for mounting the turbine and brush as a complete assembly. According to La Forge, if proven successful, the assembly would complement the other design and could be used as an option.

The turbine blade has recently completed testing under the direction of NASA engineers and in coordination with the company. The turbine blade has exceeded design expectations and has performed exceptionally well under strict testing procedures. Titusville Industries is also in discussion with a corporation that will provide a special material to injection-mold the custom turbine impeller and brush assembly. The material is made from a mixture of recycled rubber tires and plastics, minimizing tooling, manufacturing and engineering costs.

The Turbine-Driven Brush Pipe Cleaner has the potential to be used in several markets involving commercial fluids processing, including soft drink manufacturers, milk processing companies, water bottling companies, breweries, alcoholic beverage-producing companies and soup manufacturers. Applications exist in the corrosion control of steam service lines, in the removal of marine organisms from seawater lines and in the post-construction cleanup of new pipelines. The product's main uses are primarily for preventive maintenance or light industrial cleaning.

NASA's prototype consisted of a closed loop system with a 150-gallon-per-minute maximum pump. Facility requirements to run the system are 220-volt, three-phase alternate current power. The system is transportable in a standard pickup truck bed. Also, a small demonstration system using a one-inch diameter turbine brush and clear tubing is available from Titusville Industries.

For more information, contact Lewis Parrish at Kennedy Space Center.
Call: 407/867-6373, E-mail: ParriLM@kscgws00.ksc.nasa.gov Please mention you read about it in Innovation.