Additively Manufactured Dynamically Adjustable Venturi

Parabilis Space Technologies is pleased to propose development of a novel additive manufacturing based design which enables creation of a dynamically-adjustable, in-line, cavitating flow-control and measurement venturi for use in advanced propulsion system ground testing. This innovative capability dramatically adds to and extends the advantages of using a cavitating venturi to isolate combustion chambers or other downstream process fluctuations from upstream feed pressure conditions. This design is expected to greatly simplify propulsion testing and reduce costs for cases where desired liquid flow conditions are either not precisely understood or cover a range of high-precision flow rates. The proposed geometry is capable of scaling to both ultra-high pressure and high flow rate applications.

The proposed additive manufacturing technology provides significant benefit to a wide range of NASA applications, especially very high-pressure, high-flow, or extreme-temperature fluid applications such as hot hydrogen, LOX/methane, and LOX/H2.

Parabilis expects that there would be numerous commercial customers for the technology in the proposed innovation such as NTS or AMPT. In addition to propulsion testing, there is a wider band of non-space industrial applications that require both precision flow control and variable flow rate that could be users of or customers for this innovation. Any company that uses precision flow meters is a potential customer.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 4) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.