DRDOs environmental test chamber goes live

BANGALORE: The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) will throw open a state-of-the-art facility on the Centre for Airborne System (CABS) campus, near old airport here on Wednesday. The Environmental Test Chamber (ETC) will be used in military applications to execute HALT (Highly Accelerated Life Test) and HASS (Highly Accelerated Stress Screening) operations. DRDO Chief V K Saraswat will inaugurate the facility. “The chamber’s environmental performance combined with the integrated shaker makes it superior to other chambers. Accelerated testing is used to quickly detect any inherent design and manufacturing flaws in defence applications,” sources told Express.CABS installed the HALT-HASS chamber facility, which has a temperature range of -1000C to +2000C with an accuracy of ± 20C. Liquid Nitrogen expansion is used for the cooling and 120 kW Nichrome heaters are used for heating the chamber. “The chamber has a PLC-based (Programmable Logic Controller) control display (colour touch screen), which has an interface that can be operated even from a laptop,” sources said.Built just under two years, the ETC is set to accelerate all mandatory ground-based checks of many aerospace systems and sub-systems. “We are planning to offer the facility to Indian defence firms and private industries at very nominal rates,” sources said. The shock and vibration facility at the ETC provides a worthwhile testing environment for transportation simulation, mechanical shock, mission profile and environmental stress screening. Explaining the features of the complex chamber, sources said that with dynamic factors such as displacement, velocity, acceleration and force, electrodynamic vibration would be able to accurately simulate a wide range of conditions that can work to improve quality and reliability of multiple products. “As closed loop vibration control systems, electrodynamic shakers can accurately reproduce real world vibration on products from the electronics, automotive, aerospace and military industries,” sources said.