Attachment 1: A02. Fluidized Bed Mixer Facility Problem Statement; Rev 01

Statement of Objectives

03 August 2026

1. AUTHORITY

This CSO is issued under 10 U.S.C. § 4022 and DFARS Subpart 212.70, allowing the Department of War (DoW) to acquire innovative commercial items, technologies, or services through competitive procedures outside traditional FAR-based solicitations. All solutions will be treated as commercial items under FAR Part 12. Award may be executed as a FirmFixed-Price (FFP) contract(s). 2. The "Area of Interest" (AOI) / Problem Statement
The Pine Bluff Arsenal (PBA) seeks an automated, high-precision mixing, granulation, and drying system with material de-clumping, weighing, and transferring solutions to modernize the production of colored smoke energetics. Current legacy systems are 25+ years old, experience structural fatigue, utilize obsolete PLC controls, and have a manual material handling system. The desired solution must improve throughput by at least 30%, ensure sub-millimeter granulation consistency, and integrate modern safety sensors to mitigate fire/explosion risks during the mixing of volatile chemical compounds.

3. Solution Parameters

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High-precision Mixing, Granulation, and Drying system: Must be a fluidized bed mixer with the capable range of creating 800 to 1200lb mix batches.
Material De-clumping, Weighing, and Transferring: Systems for all materials must minimize particulates released into the surrounding air. Sugar and potassium chlorate are both highly hydroscopic materials; the systems handling these materials must minimize clumping and weight gain due to atmospheric humidity. This must be done in an environment where the average daily humidity in the summer is around 72% and can reach as high as 95%. The system for the potassium chlorate must include de-clumping and particle size reduction.
Reliability: System must achieve 95% operational availability. Repeatability: The System must be able to provide a 95% repeatability. Accuracy: System must be capable of an accuracy of + 1.5% of raw material weights
The Manufacturing and delivery process shall maintain a maximum

Re-blend Rate of five percent (5.0%) during each Production Campaign
Calculation of Re-blend Rate. The "Re-blend Rate" shall be calculated as follows:
Where:

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and,

𝑁𝑁
𝑅𝑅̇ = � 𝑅𝑅 � × 100
𝑁𝑁𝑇𝑇

𝑅𝑅̇ is the reblend rate.

NR is the number of Re-blends in the campaign

NT is the total number of batches in the campaign

Safety: Automated "fail-safe" shutdown protocols triggered by