Dynamic Model of the BIO-Plex Air Revitalization System

The BIO-Plex facility will need to support a variety of life support system designs and operation strategies. These systems will be tested and evaluated in the BIO-Plex facility. An important goal of the life support program is to identify designs that best meet all size and performance constraints for a variety of possible future missions. Integrated human testing is a necessary step in reaching this goal. System modeling and analysis will also play an important role in this endeavor. Currently, simulation studies are being used to estimate air revitalization buffer and storage requirements in order to develop the infrastructure requirements of the BIO-Plex facility. Simulation studies are also being used to verify that the envisioned operation strategy will be able to meet all performance criteria. In this paper, a simulation study is presented for a nominal BIO-Plex scenario with a high-level of crop growth. A general description of the dynamic mass flow model is provided, along with some simulation results. The paper also discusses sizing and operations issues and describes plans for future simulation studies.