Gyrene Develops Critical Water Purification Systems with SOLIDWORKS and 3DEXPERIENCE Works

Gyrene’s Mangrove Water-Power Harvester produces water directly from the atmosphere, even in extreme climates, and generates power to support decentralized operations, resiliency, and self-reliance in military and humanitarian operations.

The Mangrove helps minimize logistical challenges, decrease human casualties, and reduce the environmental impact of plastic water bottle waste. It also includes a mobile filtration system that produces purified drinking water from water contaminated by salt, brackish, or other pollutants.

The Gyrene Engineering Management’s leadership team, led by former military personnel, drew its inspiration for the Mangrove from the large number of casualties in military operations related to distributing water to the troops. According to Chief Technical Officer Curtis Leo, Gyrene’s initial focus was reducing the large number of military casualties caused by exposure when transporting water to troops by truck. However, the system also has great potential to alleviate the scarcity of purified water around the globe.

“Our Mangrove systems were used to purify water at the Ukrainian Refugee Children’s Camp in Poland, producing 450 gallons of purified water per day,” Leo explains. “While we initially developed this system for the Marines, who move so rapidly that supply convoys cannot keep up with their water demands, the technology can also provide purified water when it isn’t available, such as during hurricane and disaster recovery operations.”

Although Gyrene used Autodesk Fusion 360® solutions to develop its proof-of-concept prototype, it needed a better solution for managing data and transforming the prototype into a modularized, commercial product. “We work with a lot of external contractors and engineers, and we ran into issues maintaining revision control when two people needed to work on a file at the same time,” Leo recounts. That’s when the company moved to 3DEXPERIENCE Works to leverage both the cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE® platform and SOLIDWORKS® to resolve data management issues and reduce training requirements.

With the new, more powerful solutions, Gyrene was empowered to leverage feedback from two years of heavy use of its proof-of-concept prototype by the U.S. Air Force. “Using SOLIDWORKS and 3DEXPERIENCE Works, we essentially started back from scratch,” Leo continues. “Our customers wanted a more modular system that could be taken apart for transport and also the ability to mix and match systems and power sources. With SOLIDWORKS software, 3DEXPERIENCE Works solutions, and the ability to work collaboratively in the cloud, we rapidly created an entirely new system … that is much easier to use.”

Gyrene delivered a commercial system with a modular design so customers could buy the atmospheric water harvesting system, the water purification system, or both combined.

3DEXPERIENCE SOLIDWORKS Simulation tools also enabled Gyrene to reduce the weight of the 350-pound initial prototype by four percent, and the company expects to further optimize the design and reduce the weight by an additional 10 to 15 percent.

The cloud-based 3DEXPERIENCE platform enables design teams to collaborate effectively from different locations. “The move to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform essentially saved our company because development may have ground to a halt [during the pandemic] without the ability to work remotely,” Leo stresses. “Key members of our design team are located in different states. Using 3DEXPERIENCE Works solutions, we retained the ability to collaborate. Working in the cloud, we can be as seamless as if we were all in the same office and continue to progress system development.”