European Conference on Spacecraft Structures, Materials and Environmental Testing (ECSSMET) Preview

One of the best parts of my role at ARS is attending a diverse range of industry conferences and trade shows. With the expansion of ARS into Europe several years ago, we added a few European conferences to our annual travel schedule. This year, we will not only be attending the upcoming European Conference on Spacecraft Structures, Materials and Environmental Testing (ECSSMET) but we will also be presenting three exciting technical topics that ARS has been selected to share at the conference.

Presenting at conferences has always been an enjoyable challenge as ARS has grown in the last few years. While a solution sales pitch or marketing email can provide latitude for the author, a conference paper requires a level of technical competency and attention to detail that sets a high bar for focusing on facts, providing key measurements and drilling down into the science. Industry professionals on occasion encounter conference presentations that give the impression of being a sales pitch. With that in mind, as a service provider we exert every effort to deliver content that is factual, technical and rigorously supported by scientific research.

The initial and potentially most significant topic we will present at ECSSMET is Cassandra Dutt’s paper, “Structural and Practical Implications of Direct Field Acoustic Testing on Host Facilities: A Comprehensive Overview.” For years, we have worked closely with a wide range of domestic and international customers, many of whom have been dissatisfied due to a lack of information on facility interaction data despite years of scholarly papers and presentations on Direct Field Acoustic Testing (DFAN). The highly portable and scalable nature of DFAN makes it imperative to tackle this topic directly. Cassandra will present the findings of a study curated specifically to quantify the sound field and impact of the acoustic load on the host facility structure and adjacent flight hardware. The information presented will be invaluable to test campaign and facility managers in defining best practices and procedures to protect personnel and flight hardware from sustained elevated acoustic levels during DFAN testing.

Our second ECSSMET topic is one that I will personally be presenting, titled “Case Study of Large-Scale Direct Field Acoustic Tests.” Since our original studies demonstrated the viability of DFAN testing with 6 or 12 Neutron™ devices for small test configurations which was novel at the time, we now have the capability to publish the scientific results of testing large high-value test articles with as many as 90 Neutrons™. In the past many DFAN publications focused on a narrow range of topics, our approach expanded to cover both acoustic field qualification and the entire Concept of Operations (ConOps) for the test campaign. A great deal of operational knowledge goes into structural calculations, safety predictions, test procedures and data analysis for a typical DFAN campaign. We therefore felt that our large-scale DFAN tests were the perfect opportunity to publish test data, technical knowledge and some of the long-refined best practices we have developed in support of our customers. This will support our continuing efforts to help advance the ESA DFAN Handbook and the NASA Handbook 7010 for DFAN Testing.

Lastly, the third topic cannot be disclosed to the public at present due to its proprietary nature. However, we can announce that Dale Schick, Dann Hayes and Raf Mangelschots will be presenting a scientific paper on the design, execution and validation of a proprietary new test capability developed with M+P International. Like how the Neutron™ acoustic device came to fruition, we have had the opportunity to develop a capability that addresses a key challenge faced by DFAN test users with extremely sensitive flight hardware. The implementation of this capability provides significant usability enhancements and mitigates risks and challenges associated with using this approach with legacy DFAN solutions. As with our prior development and validation campaigns, this paper will be steeped in detail utilizing clear visuals to help underline the key technical points and shedding light on the interesting aspects of why this new approach was developed and how it will help to advance the technical capabilities of ARS’s DFAN testing solution in a wide range of critical applications.

A significant amount of writing is in progress alongside numerous measurements that need to be taken. I look forward to departing from Southern California and traveling to Noordwijk this fall. For those of you who will be attending the ECSSMET conference, I’m excited to see your familiar faces, make some new connections and continue learning from some of our industry’s best and brightest minds.