CHITTENANGO, N.Y. (Aug. 31, 2004) – Add entrepreneur Chris Gates to the lengthy list of small business owners who have benefited from the NASA-funded Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP).

Gates founded Pratique, Inc. in 1986 intending to secure patents and profit from the resulting products. Pratique’s most recent project is a unique fountain. “Conventional fountains require wiring and plumbing. A self-contained solar-powered unit was ideal, but none existed,” said Gates.

What resulted was a rotating solar-powered fountain, complete with lily pad and frog. According to Gates, his is the most compact of the free-floating solar fountains, weighing less than a pound. Only ¼ inch thick and 6 inches wide, the fountain is small enough for a birdbath and tall enough for pools and ponds.

After selling nearly 250 units, Gates decided that the distinctive solar-powered fountain needed improvement. “Water stream height is one of two decision-making variables that consumers consider when purchasing a fountain,” said Gates. “I once measured the fountain height at 20 inches for a few minutes, but was unable to duplicate the performance.” Gates tried to find a way to raise the stream height with no success.

That’s when he heard about SATOP through his work with the Madison County Industrial Development Agency and submitted a Request for Technical Assistance (RTA). SATOP New York Project Engineer Madi Kalibala matched the RTA with Eric Petersen, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Central Florida (UCF).

“Chris needed to know what was limiting the design’s ability to reach optimum height and to minimize pressure losses,” said Petersen. Through simple analysis and a controlled prototype experiment, Petersen found slight common differences in each design, which produced several leaks. Petersen recommended improved sealing around the pump housing and discharge tubes, and an increase in the number of impeller blades in order to increase outflow and pressure. The UCF study found that the solar-powered fountain’s theoretical height was 25-50 inches.

After receiving the recommendations from UCF, Gates still needed help implementing the recommendations in a practical way, so he submitted another RTA asking for specific design modifications for his pump. SATOP put Gates in contact with Alliance Partner Design by Analysis, Inc. (DBA), where Mehdi Golafshani, Senior Technologist, volunteered to address the technical challenge. “It was obvious that energy input provided by the pump was not being fully utilized to accelerate the surface water to the desired height,” said Golafshani.

His analysis showed that the water outlet ports in the pump were located in such a way that there was significant radial velocity, thereby reducing the kinetic energy of the output streams. Sophisticated computational fluid dynamics analysis located the ideal location for the outflow ports.

“These Alliance Partners’ contributions were significant to the improvement of the solar-powered fountain,” said Kalibala. “Such high-tech engineering assistance continues to increase small businesses’ chances of success.” Gates said that SATOP’s help will be greatly beneficial. “The development of each product is a never-ending quest to get it to work at its best,” he said. “With SATOP’s assistance I’m closer than ever to achieving that objective.”