. Bell telephone magazine . y these conditions must be anticipatedand simulated to insure the utmost reli-ability. To do this, Sandia has developedone of the outstanding envirormnentaltesting laboratories in the country. These test facilities are located in whatis known as Technical Area III, aboutsix miles south of the main SandiaLaboratory on Sandia Base. Area III,covering three square miles, contains nu-merous test facilities designed to subjectweapons systems and their componentsto environments more severe than anythey would encounter in storage, trans-portation or delivery.
. Bell telephone magazine . y these conditions must be anticipatedand simulated to insure the utmost reli-ability. To do this, Sandia has developedone of the outstanding envirormnentaltesting laboratories in the country. These test facilities are located in whatis known as Technical Area III, aboutsix miles south of the main SandiaLaboratory on Sandia Base. Area III,covering three square miles, contains nu-merous test facilities designed to subjectweapons systems and their componentsto environments more severe than anythey would encounter in storage, trans-portation or delivery. These test facilities include: two droptowers (300 and 185 feet), two largecentrifuges, a rocket sled track, an airgun with a 26 inch bore, a radiant heatfacility, a high temperature oven, an alti-tude and humidity chamber, an acousticchamber, sinusoidal and complex waveshakers, 155-mm guns, a small-explosivestest area, and others. These facilities areconstantly being modified and supple-mented as necessary to keep up with. Radioactive materials are handled by master-slave manipulator in Sandia nuclear reactor. projected weapon design and operationalrequirements. The 3000-foot sled track facility is usedto simulate various types of accelerationsencountered during missile launch andre-entry. The rocket-propelled sleds reachvelocities up to Mach , approximately2500 feet per second, which allows test-ing with high velocity impacts into vari-ous targets including wood, earth, metal,water, and concrete. Of the two centrifuges, the older onecan carry test items weighing up to10,000 pounds to simulate the loads im-posed on weapon components and sys-tems by the acceleration of missiles orjet aircraft. The centrifuge arm, with aradius of 35 feet, can subject a 1,000-pound object to 240 times the force ofgravity. The newer centrifuge, recentlyinstalled, is the largest in this country interms of dynamic load capacity. It willbe used in combined environmental tests— both acceleration
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