The Environmental Test Facility (ETF)
The ETF provides laboratory-based testing to evaluate equipment and systems under controlled climatic and dynamic stress conditions. Testing supports developmental, qualification, and sustainment assessments for military and commercial systems to ensure performance and survivability in extreme operational environments.
Capabilities
The ETF can perform:
- Reliability and Environmental Stress screenings
- Natural Environment Acceptance tests
- Induced Environmental Acceptance tests
Instrumentation and climatic chambers with capacities from 2 to 5,830 cubic feet (ft³) support these capabilities. Conditions are precisely controlled and are 100% repeatable.
The ETF can provide Full support for climatic and dynamic tests per MIL-STD-810, ITOPs, DO-160, IEC, and other DoD standards. Test chambers at the ETF can produce one or a combination of test conditions at a time:
- Temperature + humidity + altitude
- Temperature + humidity + vibration (ESS & reliability demonstrations)
- Outdoor combined blowing sand and dust for operationally realistic exposures
The ETF test team has delivered premier environmental test support for over 60 years. Our skilled personnel are highly experienced in executing advanced climatic, vibration, and shock testing to rigid military and industry standards. Additionally, our subject matter technical experts remain available to travel to commercial contractors and other government facilities to assess test chamber capability/suitability and act as a Government Representative witness to report on the conduct of first article acceptance tests.
Climate Testing
Separate chambers are available for multiple tests:
Extreme temperatures: -75 °C to +200 °C
Temperature-Altitude-Humidity:
Temperatures of -75 °C to +200 ° Celsius and altitude simulation of 400 m below sea level to 100,000 ft can be created.
Temperature-Humidity-Vibration:
Humidity control: 10% to 95% RH can be achieved.
Rain:
Icing, freezing rain, snow generation, and snow loading on small through vehicle-sized SUTs
Sunshine:
Full-spectrum solar radiation (thermal loading & actinic effects)
Blowing Sand/Dust/Rain:
Blowing sand (concentration up to 2.2 grams per cubic meter) and dust (concentrations up to 10.6 ±7 grams per cubic meter) in dedicated temperature-controlled chambers
Fungus Test:
28-day fungus growth testing; we grow, cultivate and apply fungus spores to assess the extent in which materials support fungus growth
Salt-Fog:
Salt fog, blowing rain (up to 4 inches per hour), immersion (up to 8 feet)
Explosive Atmospheric Testing:
Explosive atmosphere testing with n-Hexane or hydrogen and simulated altitude from 40,000 ft to sea level (0 ft).
Immersion Test:
Assess system’s ability to withstand water immersion (up to 8 feet), and fording
Dynamic Testing
Dynamic test capabilities include
vibration shakers with computer control to conduct sine wave, random, shock, classical shock, gunfire simulation, and shock response vibration spectra.
Four vibration systems
are Advisory Group on Reliability of Electronic Equipment (AGREE) style and consist of 10,000 random/8,000 sine force-pound capability with 2 inches of displacement in range of 5 to 2,000 Hertz. The vibration test system can replicate vibration signatures of military vehicles at various positions to look for fatigue.
The large shaker
has a capacity of 13,000 random/26,000 shock force-pounds with 3 inches of displacement and a range of 2 to 2,000 Hertz.
Four dynamic shakers
with climatic chambers can reproduce continuous diurnal cycles of exposure to measure the reliability of equipment.
The shock machine
is capable of producing half-sine, saw tooth, and square wave pulses up to 100 times acceleration due to gravity (g) with a 200-pound test item.
The large vibration machine
can achieve half-sine and saw tooth pulses up to 100 g forces with a 600-pound load. Crash safety testing can be done on this machine.
Additional test capabilities
include loose cargo bounce, vehicular bounce, drop, bench handling, and MIL-S-901 high-impact shock for lightweight equipment, rapid decompression, contamination by fluids, deep immersion (-250 ft.), snow loading/wind testing of tentage.
GPS
Global Positioning Systems (GPS) can be chamber tested at climatic/dynamic extremes with multichannel GPS simulators or live signals from first-order survey positions. The GPS simulators create moving or fixed scenarios. Transducer data, monitoring pressure, acceleration, etc. can be merged with signal quality and GPS satellite constellation ephemeral data into a single GPS-time tagged record during data reduction.
COSPAS-SARSAT
The ETF also doubles as a Search and Rescue Beacon Certification Facility. It is one of five certification facilities in the world to provide (COSPAS-SARSAT) Certification which is:
- Available for all beacon types
- Available for all protocols (user, standard, and national)
- GPS/Data Simulation for testing self-locating beacons
- Antenna characterization tests
- •System characterization tests
To help support the beacon field-testing, EPG utilizes its Test Control Complex with over 1,000 first order accuracy survey points and a position location system with GPS.
Achievements
Recently accomplished projects include:
- Switchblade Lethal Miniature Aerial Munitions System (LMAMS)
- Two Joint Counter Radio-Controlled Electronic Warfare (JCREW) 2.1 variants:
- The Crew Vehicle Receiver Jammer (CVRJ)
- The Mobile Multi-Band Jammer (MMBJ)
- The Light Tactical Trailer Mounted Electronic Attack System
- Javelin Missile Command Launch Unit (CLU)
- The Common Through Sight Video (CTSV)
- PM Soldier Sensors & Lasers (PM SSL) on the AN/PVS-26 Clip on Sniper Night Sight
- XM982-Excalibur
- Defense Advanced GPS Receiver (DAGR)
- Ground-Based GPS Receiver Application Module (GB-GRAM)
- Joint Tactical Radio Systems (JTRS)
- Nett Warrior
C5ISR Systems
Large C5ISR Systems Capability
- The ETF has a Large C5ISR Systems Chamber (50’x20’x20’) ( LxWxH) capable of supporting Blowing Wind, Sand, Dust, and Rain Subtests under controlled temperature conditions. Contact us for your specific requirements.