CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. -- In late October and early November, Letterkenny Munitions Center hosted a group of environmental specialists in order to perform testing on LEMC's environmentally-friendly Ammonium Perchlorate Rocket Motor Thermal Destruction Facility.
A team of experts continue to progress with acceptance testing and "system shakedown" on the facility. Most recently, subject matter experts, including the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and Blue Mountain Environmental, performed stack testing using the Phoenix rocket motor. This testing technically evaluates the final discharge released into the environment through analyses during the motor firing process.
The ARMD facility at LEMC is a new facility which supports an environmentally-friendly means to demilitarize Ammonium Perchlorate-based composite rocket motors through a technologically-advanced confined-burn system, coupled with a multi-stage pollution-abatement process that captures exhaust by-products and cleanses them. The process has demonstrated a greater than ninety-eight percent effectiveness in cleansing fired rocket motor exhaust gases.
As a solid fuel for rocket motors, AP-based propellant is an ideal energetic for military applications since it is chemically stable, can be stored for long periods without degradation, and is safer and easier to handle in large quantities than other liquid or solid propellant types. Many of these systems, manufactured over the last 40 years, are obsolete or no longer useable, and are forecasted for demolition during the next 10 to 15 years. Due to this large inventory and ecological concerns associated with the potential release of AP and other pollutants to the environment, the development of a comprehensive demilitarization process for AP propellants was critical.
Construction of this $38 million facility began in 2013. The current facility consists of a Motor Preparation Building and Thermal Treatment Chamber with related support structures. Future plans identify a concurrent Rocket Motor Segmentation Building to appropriately section larger motors to a suitable size for processing in the chamber. The new facility will greatly reduce the need for static burn of rocket motors, reducing both noise and environmental pollution.
"The group selected five motor types, grouped into families based on their net propellant weight, for acceptance demonstration and production testing. The Phoenix is the second motor family to be fully tested and is considered to be in the medium family of rocket motors," stated Woody Pike, ARMD Program Manager, LEMC. "The group completed final acceptance testing in early November with a Production Unit Demonstration of 12 Phoenix motors and a cycle time of 25 minutes. The stack test report will be forwarded to PADEP within the next few weeks for their review/approval in order to meet Resource Conservation and Recovery Act permit requirements."
Specialists from PADEP and Blue Mountain Environmental are currently conducting environmental sampling of residual solid and liquid waste. Over the next several months, the LEMC team will continue to perform acceptance testing on the facility utilizing the other three rocket motor types. After all testing and operational demonstration is complete, the facility will transition from the contractor to the U.S. Army. Full rate operation will commence once the facility is in the U.S. Army's official possession, which is projected for 2019.
LEMC is located on Letterkenny Army Depot and conducts regional and global distribution of munitions, provides missile maintenance, and conducts demilitarization of munitions for the U.S. Army in support of Joint Forces and international partner nations.
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