Ship Hull Systems facilities

Ballast Tank

Annapolis, MD

The ballast tank is used primarily by naval architecture students for the study of ship stability. Several large ship models are used to perform inclining experiments, and to experimentally determine righting arm curves for both intact and damaged conditions.

Chesapeake Bay Detachment (CBD)

Washington, DC

Circulating Water Channel

West Bethesda, MD

The Circulating Water Channel is used for flow visualization and to show the flow around thrusters, propulsors, rudders, and appendages. Other novel uses include modeling smoke and exhaust gas flow around the superstructure and deck of a ship. An oil spill from a ruptured tanker hull section has been modeled using lubricating oil mixed with dye. Details of smoke spreading inside a hull have been visualized using a dye technique modeling density differences of the dyed water in a clear plexiglass model hull. Scale fishing nets have also been tested. Commercial uses of this facility include maritime shipping industry, fishing industry, and oceanographic engineering applications.

Fatigue and Fracture Laboratories

West Bethesda, MD

The Fatigue and Fracture Laboratories are an extensive facility for characterization of low-temperature fracture, dynamic fracture, low-cycle and high-cycle fatigue and fatigue crack growth properties. It consists of five major areas of equipment and instrumentation: computer-interactive servo-hydraulic fracture and fatigue test systems; high load, variable-stiffness computer-interactive fracture test systems; dynamic fracture servo-hydraulic test systems; dynamic fracture impact towers; and thick weldment low-cycle fatigue test systems.

Fire Research Enclosure

Washington, DC

Large Scale Grillage Test Facility

West Bethesda, MD

This facility is capable of exerting up to 5,000,000 pounds of axial in-plane load (tension or compression) and up to 25 psi uniform lateral pressure onto a large/full-scale orthogonally stiffened plate. The facility is capable of testing grillage structures with dimensions of up to 8 ft wide and 24 ft long.

Large-Scale Damage Control Facility

Washington, DC

Marine Coatings Laboratories

West Bethesda, MD

The Marine Coatings Laboratories are an extensive facility consisting of a paint formulation and application lab, a paint test and evaluation lab, and a biosurface analytical lab; capable of formulating and manufacturing paints, coatings and adhesives, and analyzing and evaluating these materials for input into design guidance, specifications, and manuals.

Marine Corrosion Control and Evaluation Laboratories

West Bethesda, MD

The Marine Corrosion Control and Evaluation Laboratories consist of the aqueous corrosion and electrochemical labs; environmentally assisted cracking lab; marine corrosion analysis lab; low-velocity burner rig lab; and a small-scale high-temperature lab. They provide the capability of testing materials in a simulated gas turbine environment, conducting corrosion research, metallurgy failure analysis, and electrochemical testing of Navy seaborne materials.

Marine Corrosion Facility

Washington, DC

Motion Platform

Lakehurst, NJ

The motion platform is a 48-inch, 6-degree-of- freedom motion system obtained from the Naval Training Center, Orlando, Florida, where it was used as a T-2 trainer. The platform has been programmed to provide ship motion characteristics of various class ships during sea states 1 through 5. It can be used for developmental or first article testing of shipboard equipment.

Ship Motion Simulator Land Based Test Site

West Bethesda, MD

The Ship Motion Simulator Land Based Test Site is a table with a top that rotates sinusoidally around two perpendicular axes that are parallel to the ground. The table is hydraulically powered with the top’s motion controlled by a programmable waveform generator that works with a feedback system to allow automatic, consistent, smooth operation. The Simulator is used to test equipment under simulated shipboard roll and pitch conditions. It is capable of testing a maximum load of 20,000 pounds under any combination of the following conditions: 24 degrees roll with a 9 second period; 7 degrees pitch with a 6 second period.

Shipboard Information Systems Laboratory

Lakehurst, NJ

The laboratory has been outfitted with the latest Navy tactical computer equipment, networking hardware and computer displays to support the development and testing of new information systems designed specifically for shipboard use in support of Naval Aviation. The list of hardware assets currently include TAC-3, TAC-4, X-terminals, COTS PCs (running commercial software), Ethernet, FDDI, and ATM.

Survivability Engineering Facility

West Bethesda, MD

The Survivability Engineering Facility supports environmental testing and hardening of shipboard components and systems used throughout the surface and sub-surface fleets. The facilities consist of a wide array of environmental and stress test equipment, vibration-testing equipment capable of producing linear and logarithmic swept-sine and random waveforms for test. In addition, the facility possesses the ability to test components and systems weighing up to 10,000 pounds and as large as 64 square feet. Testing is performed on the universe of components and systems for all shipboard HM&E applications, including main propulsion equipment, generator sets, controllers, electronics and fiber optic system controllers.