Environmental testing helps Soldiers, civilians perform mission

Fort Huachuca, Arizona -Testing at the U.S. Army Electronic Proving Ground Environmental Test Facility has been helping Soldiers and civilians for years and they might not even realize it.

The USAEPG Environmental Test Facility, or ETF, conducts dynamic and climatic testing on handheld, manpack, palletized and vehicular C4ISR (Communications, Command Control and Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance)-based systems. Some of the tests last days while others can last up to a full year.

According to the USAEPG ETF handout, "the environmental test facility conducts tests based on the whole life cycle process in simulated environments. Complete climatic and dynamic test capabilities are available for testing to military and other environmental standards. The ETF is adequately equipped with a variety of test support equipment to monitor all test variables to provide real time or post test analysis."

The ETF is capable of testing equipment in temperatures reaching 250 degrees below zero with liquid nitrogen, but typically tests at 100 below zero, and tests as high in 450 degree Fahrenheit, in the facility's high/low temperature chamber.

"Some of the components, we're not sure how they will perform under extreme environmental conditions, so in this case we make it very cold or very hot to check the behavioral changes we might see," said Jim Homer, Nett Warrior test representative. As an example, this [Nett Warrior] system which is like a cell phone might go into a self-protective mode, but we need to know that so we can train the Soldiers, prepare them for how the equipment will react while they're in Afghanistan or Iraq or some environment where it might get very hot or very cold."

Other tests the facility can perform are altitude tests. During these tests, technicians are able to remove all of the air from the altitude chamber as well as apply pressure to simulate various altitudes and see how the equipment will perform.

The ETF also houses a fungus lab, where technicians can grow fungi and see if specific ones will eat away at the equipment or have no effect. The techs can also run environmental tests with blowing wind, rain, sand and dust to look for abrasions caused by sand, or to make sure the dust will not jam the equipment and to see if the equipment will still operate in an environment where those elements are probable.

Dynamic shakers help the techs find a fatigue relationship. "We attach the test item to dynamic shakers, introduce either a sign sweep or a random bandwidth floor noise," said Terry Lemaire, task leader, Mantech.

If the equipment was to be mounted on a helicopter, the team can replicate that helicopter's vibration signature by introducing random noise and different components, Lemaire said. "What we are looking to see is will this vibration fatigue any of the components and damage it, that's primarily what we do," he added.

One unique machine the ETF houses is a machine designed to test mobile human remains containers. "A body bag or coffin goes in it and the customer wanted to know if the body bags would survive an explosive decompression event, wanted to make sure the contents wouldn't rupture and expel through the sides of the bags," said Lemaire. "The requirement was to have an altitude setting of approximately 8,000 feet, which is cabin pressure with an envelope of air on the outside around 40,000 feet, and then transition from 8,000 to 40,000 in less than 100 milliseconds."

The facility can also test for salt-fog corrosion in their testing booth. It can visually indication how salt will effect the equipment, and is vital for those working near the ocean.

"We qualify it basically, make sure the device does what [the customer wants] it to do and what the builder says it will do," said Herald Vahle, ETF manager. The facility is staffed with two government electrical engineers and five Mantech technical staff members.

In addition to testing at the ETF on Fort Huachuca, staff members test at other governmental test facilities, commercial facilities, and at vendor developmental sites within the U.S. and Canada.

All of these machines and tests hold the same goal of being able to certify a piece of equipment for the government or a commercial customer before they proceed with purchasing the equipment. The primary customer at the ETF is the Army but they have also worked with the Air Force, Marines, Navy and several government agencies and in the commercial industry. The ETF supports, on an average, 45 environmental tests per year.