A Compact Nitrogen Generator for Cold Spray and Naval Sustainment

Cold spray technology is an advanced process that can significantly enhance the Navy’s maintenance processes.  Cold spray technology enhances the Navy’s maintenance capabilities extending equipment lifecycles and restore or even extend their original design specifications. Cold spray technology requires an ample supply of a pure inert gas stream with high thermal conductivity and sonic velocity to ensure effective bonding through mechanical impingement and interlocking of metallic powders. This brings in a need for compact portable on-site inert high purity N2 gas generators (with less than 100 ppm O2) for NAVSEA use. The commercial N2 generators are bulky and only provide N2 at 100 psig while we need 1200 psi high purity N2 for cold spray use. Hence in this SBIR (Open-Topic) work TDA Research proposes to develop high purity, high flow, high pressure compact N2 PSA generators that are customized to NAVSEA needs.In Phase I base period we will focus on performing a detailed preliminary engineering analysis on the proposed TDA’s customized N2 PSA system to evaluate the system requirements and assess the best integration options to NAVSEA’s cold spray system. In the option Period we will perform a detailed conceptual design analysis and breadboard system development.