National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) recently redesigned the system used to test the new space suit Portable Life Support System (PLSS) that is under development. In order to test the PLSS a simulated human metabolic load must be applied to the various sub-systems and so NASA needed to simulate the human production of CO2 and water vapour with its associated heat load.
Working closely with NASA engineers to fully understand the application requirements, Bronkhorst learned that accurate, stable control of water vapour was critical to efficient and repeatable testing and therefore successful development of the PLSS.
The recommended Bronkhorst solution was a CEM (Controlled Evaporatorion and Mixing) system to properly control the mass of water being vaporized as well as the amount of CO2 in the vapour. NASA has three CEM systems connected to an outlet manifold. Each CEM system consists of a liquid mass flow controller (H2O), a gas mass flow controller (CO2), a Controlled Evaporator Mixer, and a readout/control unit. The three connected CEM systems are collectively referred to as the Human Metabolic Simulator (HMS).