About

Cable Kurwitz is an Instructional Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University. He holds a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from Texas A&M University, earned in 2009, along with a Master's degree in Nuclear Engineering from the same institution obtained in 1997, and a Bachelor's degree in Nuclear Engineering completed in 1993. His research interests include reduced gravity thermal management, modeling of high dimensional data, data classification and model validation, and nuclear power systems. He is associated with groups such as Nuclear Power Engineering and the Interphase Transport Phenomena Laboratory, focusing on advancing understanding and applications within nuclear engineering and thermal transport phenomena.

Research topics

• Physics
• Environmental science
• Process engineering
• Engineering
• Materials science
• Environmental engineering
• Aerospace engineering
• Chemical engineering
• Mechanics
• Geology
• Chemistry
• Remote sensing
• Mathematics
• Thermodynamics
• Astrobiology
• Waste management
• Geometry

Selected publications

• Design and Development of Vortex Phase Separator-Based Spacecraft Cabin Air Humidity Control Subsystem Prototype for CO2 Removal using Regenerable Ionic Liquid Desiccant

  2024-07-21

  articleOpen access

  NASA's challenging deep space exploration missions demand innovative, reliable, and cost-effective technologies for life support systems. Air revitalization, particularly CO2 removal, in this manner, is a key life support system. However, the legacy solid sorbent (zeolite)-based CO2 removal technology used in the ISS experiences reliability issues and capability gaps. One of the alternative technologies under consideration is CO2 deposition. Recent NASA studies demonstrated that utilizing cryogenic coolers offers cold surfaces for CO2 capture (deposition) and can be an effective approach to revitalize cabin air. Nevertheless, to maintain purity to feed to a downstream Sabatier reactor, and to ensure high efficiency of CO2 capture, humidity from cabin air must be removed prior to CO2 deposition on cold surfaces. The current ISS dehumidification system employs solid desiccants (silica gels) and has maintenance and high energy consumption challenges. A liquid desiccant can instead be utilized to build a humidity control subsystem as part of a CO2 deposition system and enhance its performance. This work aims to utilize a unique Vortex Phase Separator (VPS)-based air-desiccant contactor design that can achieve a direct-contact, high-efficiency heat and mass exchange between air and desiccant and offer reliable, high-throughput operation for dehumidification/re-humidification. Such a subsystem employs a cold and hot VPS to serve as the absorber and desorber portions of the process system, produces temperature gradient by a heater and a chiller, as well as a regenerative heat exchanger, and uses two pumps for liquid desiccant recirculation. Therefore, the subsystem can continuously operate to dehumidify /re-humidify cabin air and regenerate desiccant. This paper describes design and development efforts of the VPS-based spacecraft cabin air dehumidification/re-humidification prototype that utilizes a selected regenerable liquid desiccant (ionic liquid [EMIM][ESO4]), and indicates the potential of this humidity control subsystem for implementation as part of an alternative spacecraft CO2 removal system.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Determination of Percent Area Coverage of Lunar Simulant on a Surface and Observations of Fairy Castle Structures

  2024 · 1 citations

  • Astrobiology
  • Environmental science
  • Geology

  With NASA’s goal of returning humans to the Moon, it has become increasingly important to understand the impact of lunar regolith on spacecraft systems. The ability to measure the level of dust coverage on a surface is essential. Developing an accurate technique to determine percent area coverage is challenging due to the unique and complex layering of the dust particles on the surface, creating fairy castle structures that form complex towers, bridges, and buttresses using the smallest of dust particles as building blocks. For this study, these structures have been simulated using a unique dust distributor device and imaged with a scanning electron microscope. The results show the dusted surface’s complex topology, thus demonstrating the difficulty with determining the percent area of dust coverage. Implications for dust buildup on spacecraft, even at the microscopic level, can include degraded heat transfer and altered optical properties, making continuation of this research critical to support future human exploration of the Moon.

  PublisherDOI

• NuSTEM: Nuclear Science, Technology and Education for Molten Salt Reactors

  2023-05-11

  report
  PublisherDOI

• Investigation of microgravity vortex phase separator for spacecraft liquid amine CO2 removal system

  Acta Astronautica · 2023 · 8 citations

  • Materials science
  • Aerospace engineering
  • Environmental science
  PublisherDOI

• Preliminary Investigation of Vortex Phase Separator-Based Spacecraft Cabin Air Dehumidification Subsystem for CO2 Removal

  2023-07-16

  articleOpen access

  Cabin atmosphere revitalization, more specifically CO2 removal, is a key technology to pursue long-duration, crewed space missions. The ISS currently uses the Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) that employs desiccant (silica gel) and solid sorbent (zeolite) to remove humidity and CO2 from cabin air, respectively. However, CDRA has challenges with high reliability and low maintenance requirements. Air dehumidification is an important process for state-of-the-art and emerging technologies since it helps provide higher CO2 removal efficiency and purer CO2 downstream product. The desiccant in CDRA degrades over time, causes substantial reduction in water removal capacity,?and would require an additional energy cost for regeneration. A promising technology to perform successful dehumidification in support of new CO2 removal systems is the Vortex Phase Separator (VPS). The VPS operation in microgravity relies on creating and maintaining a liquid vortex, which offers centrifugal acceleration in replacement of gravitational acceleration, within a right circular cylinder. Warm and humid air enters the VPS, breaks into very small bubbles, and passes through cold liquid desiccant. Rapid, direct heat and mass exchange between the liquid and gas phases facilitates high water absorption and/or condensation capability, and allows for high throughput per unit energy consumed. This preliminary study investigates the VPS for cabin air dehumidification as part of NASA's spacecraft CO2 removal systems under consideration. A prototype microgravity VPS system was designed, built, and tested to separate water vapor from a warm, humid air stream to characterize its performance using water and ionic liquid (IL) in the separator. Experiments with 77 SCFH airflow rate and 200 ml IL charge demonstrated the VPS capability to reduce up to 45% of water content in a humid air stream.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Design, Modeling, and Initial Characterization of a Subscale Variable Conductance Radiator for CO2 Deposition System in Deep Space Transit

  2023-07-16

  article

  Deep space, long-duration human exploration missions require critical technical advancements in areas such as air revitalization, since resupply is not accessible and resources including mass, power, and volume must be minimized for all subsystems. NASA is currently conducting research on a CO2 capture technique that involves using cryogenic coolers to create cold surfaces. By cooling cabin air to extremely low temperatures, CO2 is deposited onto these surfaces. This process is performed in a continuous, cyclic manner to demonstrate concept of operation. However, since the implementation of cryogenic coolers results in high power consumption, alternative methods are needed to achieve energy efficient air revitalization systems. As Mars transit missions provide a capability to view deep space at low temperatures, utilizing radiators for heat rejection is emerging as an opportunity to complement or replace cryogenic coolers for CO2 deposition. This study focuses on the Variable Conductance Radiator (VCR)-based CO2 deposition system that mainly features two internal CO2 capture/recovery panels and one external heat rejection panel (radiator). The closed-loop system circulates a working fluid between two panels: the CO2 capture panel and the heat rejection panel. The CO2 capture panel is maintained at approximately 130K, allowing CO2 from the cabin air to be deposited on it. The heat rejection panel, exposed to the deep space environment at around 4K, dissipates the heat absorbed from the air stream. The two internal panels operate alternately; while one panel involves circulating working fluid to maintain a cold surface for CO2 deposition, the other one involves stagnant, non-condensable gas and is heated for CO2 sublimation. A subscale, VCR-based CO2 deposition system is investigated to demonstrate its feasibility for deep space applications. Initial efforts include developing the design geometry and performing analytical and numerical analysis to evaluate various design parameters for the external heat rejection panel (radiator).

  PublisherDOI

• NASA Exploration Systems & Habitation (X-Hab)Academic Innovation Challenge 2020: Microgravity Gas/Liquid Separator for the CO2 Revitalization System Final Report

  2020

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Engineering
  • Process engineering
  • Waste management

  This report outlines the efforts of UNT X-Hab Team on a project titled, Microgravity Gas/Liquid Separator for the CO2 Revitalization System. The project is executed as a senior design project during academic year 2019-2020. The X-Hab 2020 Academic Innovation Challenge has selected eleven senior design teams from colleges across the US to demonstrate working prototypes for exploration systems and habitation. UNT has been tasked with the creation of a gas-liquid separator for an air revitalization system. Air revitalization technology has been used to support spaceflight by removing CO2 from enclosed systems in order to maintain breathable air. Solid sorbents such as zeolites or lithium hydroxide have been used in the past for these systems but are difficult to handle in microgravity environments and require a large amount of energy. This challenge aims to demonstrate vortex phase separator (VPS) technology for removing H2O from a CO2 stream. However, VPS technology also has the capability of using liquid sorbents for removing CO2 from an air stream. Further research could be done on liquid sorbents, such as liquid amine, in use with VPS systems. This would potentially be an alternative technology in replacing use of solid sorbents in CO2 removal systems. In 2019, NASA proposed a design that uses a gas/liquid contactor to allow for efficient contact between the two fluid phase. This was integrated into an overall CO2 removal system. The subsystems for gas-liquid separation and storage in NASA’s previous models for CO2 removal system could be replaced with a VPS. Innovative vortex separator technology is expected to allow for high throughput flow and highly efficient CO2 removal compared to other gas-liquid separation technologies. VPS relies on centripetal driven buoyancy forces to form a gas-liquid vortex within a fixed, right circular cylinder. The gas stream enters the separator through a tangential nozzle and breaks into very small bubbles (<<1 mm) resulting in a very large contact surface area for interaction with the liquid stream via energy and mass exchange. VPS technology can handle mismatches in inlet and outlet flow rates and system volume changes through the range of liquid thickness held in the separator (i.e., buffering and accumulating capability), and requires low pressure differences (<5-10 in H2O in most cases) for operation. The X-Hab 2020 team leverages these characteristics to investigate VPS technology as an alternative CO2 removal technology.

  Publisher

• Enhanced nucleate boiling on 3D-printed micro-porous structured surface

  Applied Thermal Engineering · 2018-05-28 · 33 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Experimental Study of Helix-Finned Surface for Nucleate Pool Boiling

  2016-06-26 · 4 citations

  article

  This research presents results from experimental investigations on helix-finned surface fabricated by a 3D printing technique to evaluate boiling heat transfer performance. The experiments were conducted in saturated water at atmospheric pressure. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first attempt that helical pin fins are employed in thermal management. The boiling curve of the enhanced surface was characterized by a much lower wall superheat at the same heat flux compared with plain surfaces. High-speed visualization was used to display instantaneous bubble behaviors such as the bubble departure frequency, which was obtained from analyzed images. It was observed that the helix-finned surface had higher bubble departure frequencies compared to plain surfaces and an earlier onset of nucleate boiling was noticed. It is concluded that the surface roughness and micron level cavities produced by the 3D printing technique on the helix surface are key factors to enhance boiling heat transfer. With the experience gained, dimension optimization of helical structure should be studied further to meet the needs of increased heat dissipation rate.

  PublisherDOI

• Microgravity Bubbly-to-Slug Flow Regime Transition Theory and Modeling

  Microgravity Science and Technology · 2013-09-03 · 4 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Frederick R. Best

  Texas A&M University

  20 shared

• Michael Schüller

  FH Aachen

  9 shared

• Ryoji Oinuma

  7 shared

• Ben Larsen

  5 shared

• Michael C. Ellis

  Advanced Cooling Technologies (United States)

  5 shared

• Frank E. Little

  Texas A&M University

  5 shared

• Filip Reinis

  Honeywell (United States)

  3 shared

• Kathryn Miller Hurlbert

  Johnson Space Center

  3 shared