REDSTONE ARSENAL, Ala. (December 28, 2015) -- The U.S. Army Redstone Test Center (RTC) conducts a form of environmental testing that can't be performed by any other Department of Defense (DOD) agency and possibly not by any other agency in the world.
RTC has three active, test directorates: the Aviation Flight Test Directorate, Missiles and Sensors Test Directorate and the Environmental and Component Test Directorate (ECTD). At ECTD, highly-skilled workers along with engineers test the vibration and climatic limits of various equipment, aircraft, ammunitions and more.
"We ensure that the American Warfighter is supported with the best and most effective equipment and the best information on how that equipment will perform in various environments," said Col. Patrick Mason, commander of RTC.
Environmental effects testing scrutinizes the materials to examine how they withstand heat and cold, humidity, blowing sand, salt fog, and other environmental situations they may encounter during a mission.
One specialty-testing area at RTC is Electromagnetic Environmental Effects (E3) testing, which checks the equipment for its response to radio frequency interferences involving radar, improvised explosive device jammers and communications equipment. These interferences also are from natural events, such as lightning and transient environments, such as static discharges and electromagnetic pulses. There are four basic types of tests conducted by ECTD: radio frequency testing, lightning testing, electrostatic discharge testing and electromagnetic pulse testing.
RTC has specialized equipment that replicates the lightning-strike environment. These manufactured strikes generate up to 200,000 amps and 1,000,000 volts, and testing can include "near-strike" and "direct-strike" scenarios conducted on assets dedicated for testing. RTC has been specializing in E3 testing since 1965 and has been conducting lightning specific tests since 1981.
Testing an inert system, such as an unarmed helicopter, to measure it's response to this stimulus is one aspect of the testing. The unique capability within RTC is the ability to run these tests on live ordnances or equipment containing live ordnances.
"This testing allows us to improve systems and know the limitations of the equipment," said Jeff Craven, a senior electronics engineer with 33 years of service with RTC. "We do full-up, tactical, live-ordinance testing, and we are the only ones in the DOD with that capability. We are possibly the only ones in the world. "
RTC has two lightning test facilities, one dedicated for inert-system testing and one for fully-tactical ordnance testing, which will be undergoing an upgrade soon in order to make it remotely controlled.
RTC is a subordinate command of the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command and provides technical expertise, state-of-the-art facilities, and capabilities to plan, conduct, analyze, and report the results of tests on missile and aviation systems, sensors, subsystems and components. RTC is a customer-funded organization.
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