The commercial market for our product is large and includes the broad aerospace and defense industry as well as safety and fire-suppression devices in the general industry including the nuclear, chemical processing and oil sectors. Pyrotechnic actuators are extensively used in products such as fire suppression systems (for deployment and dispersion of suppressants), electric disconnects in safety systems (for high speed termination of electrical circuits), air-bags and safety restraint systems (as a rapid gas generator), cable cutters and explosive bolts among numerous other applications. For these applications, characterizing the transient performance of the system is vital and the availability of a well-validated, reliable computational tool can play a key role in the design process for these critical elements. In addition to these traditional markets, commercial space ventures ranging from space transportation systems (COTS) for the international space station (ISS), to low-cost satellite launch systems would be receptive to this product.
The end-product will be a high-fidelity, numerical simulation software (CRUNCH CFDREG code) that would predict the transient performance of pyrotechnic actuators, provide design support by supplementing current empirical rules, and diagnose system anomalies. Since pyrovalves are critical component of any space mission, our product addresses core needs of NASA missions including the Constellation program, the Mars science laboratory, as well as the new heavy lift rocket that may be designed. Pyrovalves are typically used for critical safety functions including emergency deployment of landing gears, chute deployment, and fuel flow control for thrusters. Consequently, pyrovalves have to be fail-proof and need to provide extremely reliable actuation with 99% reliability and 90% confidence interval level. However design and safety analyses have been largely testing driven and heavily based on empiricism since analysis and design tools are not mature. Our product addresses this critical need and would provide a reliable and well-validated tool.
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