Currently, most fluid-handling devices (fans, mixers, pumps, turbines, propellers), as well as those that move through fluids (boat hulls and aircraft fuselages) face significant limitations, such as drag resistance, low output, inefficient energy usage, excessive noise, or component wear.  The Streamlining Principle employs natural flow geometries to improve upon these existing limitations and provide the following benefits:

Increased Efficiency: Decreased noise, increased output, decreased power usage

Optimized Flow Pattern: Drag reduction, controlled directional thrust/flow, low shear/cavitation

Decreased Manufacturing and Maintenance Cost: Optimized material usage, reduced motor size, increased structural integrity

Our R&D team studies the fundamental mathematics and fluid dynamics underlying the Streamlining Principle using both CFD numerical methods and generally accepted engineering practices. Through our analysis of natural flow, we optimize streamlining geometries for appropriate fluid-handling applications.  We also use in-house and external experimental testing by independent research facilities to validate our methods and ensure that performance is fully optimized.

Through our subsidiaries, we are currently commercializing solutions for air handling, water and wastewater management, industrial mixing, desalinization, and researching surface profile applications.  


Fans and Blowers: Innovative Air Handling

PAX fan blades, housings, hubs, and other fan components are commercialized by PAX Fan. PAX Fan develops appliance, refrigeration, HVAC, consumer, computer cooling, and transportation fans. 

Fans have broad industrial and commercial application, and account for 14 percent of industrial motor system energy use.  Additionally, cooling fans are a critical component of electronic equipment: a desktop computer can have three, four, or even five fans; computer servers may have a dozen or more—and fans are the chief source of noise problems associated with electronic equipment.

By applying the patented PAX geometries to ordinary fan blades, PAX can consistently design fans that are appreciably quieter, use less energy and/or smaller motors for the same output, provide greater and/or more controllable flow, and reduce manufacturing costs while providing improved performance.  PAX fans produce these benefits by reducing the amount of turbulence in the air before and after contact with the fan.

PAX case studies

PAX Water Technologies

A subsidiary of PAX Scientific, PAX Water Technologies holds the license to market PAX Scientific's water and wastewater treatment solutions, including the PAX Water Mixer.  PAX Water’s first entry into the market is an efficient mixing system for use in municipal water storage tanks.

Water agencies face a variety of challenges in maintaining water quality. A leading cause of water quality deterioration in distribution system storage tanks and reservoirs is stagnation, caused by numerous factors, including underutilization, thermal loading, or inlet/outlet pipe configuration.  Under these conditions, especially in the thermally isolated upper layers, water ages and can completely lose its disinfectant residual, the final barrier protecting the health of consumers from microbial contaminants.

The PAX Water Mixer uses proprietary PAX technology to completely mix ground level water storage facilities.  PAX has a range of products suitable for effectively mixing reservoirs up to 20 million gallons, with the 1/3 horsepower unit demonstrating proven effectiveness in reservoirs up to 7 million gallons.  The system's mixing impeller fully blends new water into the stored water to effectively distribute chemical agents throughout the water and maintain peak water quality at a maximum temperature differential of less than 1.0°C throughout the reservoir.

PAX Mixer

PAX Mixer is commercializing rotary and static (in-line) mixer technology for the industrial market including petroleum, pharmaceutical, and beverage industries.  These industries use mixing for product blending, fermentation, suspension, catalysis, crystallization and 2- and 3-phase mixing.  PAX Mixer’s technology can provide a number of benefits, including lower energy usage, lower capital cost, extremely low shear, superior blend times, and increased yields. 

In 2007, parent company PAX Scientific was awarded a three-year, $1.9M Advanced Technology Program (ATP) grant from the Commerce Department to support development of a new class of industrial mixing technology based on PAX’s biomimetic design approach.  PAX Mixer will spearhead this research for PAX Scientific. 

PAX Pure

PAX Pure is commercializing a water purification technology initially focused in demineralization. The Pure technology is a unique distillation system, developed by pairing fundamental thermodynamic principles with scientific insights from Biomimicry. PAX Pure aims to dramatically lower capital and operational expenditure for the rapidly growing demineralization market.

Pure technology offers a number of competitive advantages that separates it from competing technologies. The process uses no membranes, moving parts or chemicals in a one stage low energy distillation process. Founded in 2012, PAX Pure is currently developing prototypes of the technology.  


Other R&D

Building on CEO Jay Harman’s previous work on hull design for his award-winning watercraft Goggleboat and WildThing, PAX has performed CFD simulations on marine surface profiles. The company is currently developing watercraft prototypes that use the Streamlining Principle to optimize surface profiles.