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Original Date: 08/08/1994
Revision Date: 01/18/2007
Information : Laboratory Vibration Testing
CSTA conducts vibration testing on Army ammunition and various pieces of hardware carried aboard Army vehicles to ensure the rounds will not accidentally detonate during vehicle operations. Other components are tested to ensure they will perform reliably when subjected to the vibrations inside operating vehicles.
Because of safety and economic constraints, CSTA has performed these vibration tests in a laboratory environment designed to simulate the vibrations that the ammunition and hardware undergo in field use. To develop tests that accurately portray field vibration conditions, CSTA recorded representative field data from tracked and wheeled vehicles. From this data, laboratory vibration schedules were developed that subject the test objects to typical field use vibrations.
The capability to perform vibration testing in a laboratory has resulted in several benefits. First, personnel are protected from possible ammunition detonation because each type of ammunition can be thoroughly tested under multiple scenarios before being sent to the troops. Secondly, the cost of conducting tests is greatly reduced since a vibration simulator is less expensive to operate than the vehicle being simulated. Finally, the time to conduct tests is greatly compressed; for example, 6000 miles of tracked vehicle testing can be simulated in four hours.
During the construction of this laboratory, barricades were required around the vibration test beds to protect personnel in case of an ammunition explosion during testing. The cost estimate to build this facility using traditional reinforced concrete barricades was approximately $26M. CSTA needed the facility but lacked adequate funding for the traditional barricades. To solve this problem, CSTA developed and tested a new barricade construction technique which consists of approximately two feet of sand sandwiched between two steel panels. Using the sandwich construction technique, the new facility was constructed at a cost of $5.6M.
For more information see the
Point of Contact for this survey.
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