Anyone who has ever been to the beach on a windy day knows how sand has a way of covering everything you own. From your shoes to your cell phone, a sandstorm can ruin a perfectly good vacation faster than a seagull attack. But while a sandy cell phone may mean a day without texting for you, for soldiers in Afghanistan, it could mean life or death.
The military tests every piece of critical equipment they issue against real-world conditions. But deploying into the desert has had unforeseen consequences for communication technology. As technology advances, these devices have to be tested constantly against the harsh desert terrain. York’s Air Dynamics has created a sandstorm simulator–like a wind tunnel with a sandbox in it–to test equipment against heat, sand, wind and all other variables desert-bound soldiers are likely to face.
“The battlefield is not the place to do the testing to find out if this particular support system will work,” says Air Dynamics President Dan Lehman. “So what this will allow the military to do is provide a repeatable and reliable environment in which to test that item.”
The construction and testing was completed last week and the military has approved the shipment to the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Crane, Indiana. But if you ask Lehman, this delivery is just the beginning. Engineers at Air Dynamics know we are not going to be fighting in the Middle East forever so they have begun exploring other applications for their sand tunnel. With 90 deserts throughout the world, there are a host of products that face the debilitating effects of erosion. Wind turbines and solar farms looking to harness the power of the desert sun must hold up against more than just heat, as constant sand drifts can eat away at critical parts. Automotive companies that sell in arid climates around the world must protect their paint jobs against the harsh realities of sand And even cellular towers face rising sand and dust eroding instruments and scrambling signals. Like the U.S. military, Air Dynamics engineers will go wherever they are needed to fight the scourge of sand.
“The military has been seeking this technology since the early nineties and even prior to that,” says Lehman. “But even in the United States and other parts of the world, as population grows, we are actually growing into more arid regions of the country and the world so, as people do that, their way of living is affected by the abrasive nature of sand and dust. The applications–solar panels, automotive, wind turbines–are just a few areas subject to the wear and tear of the environment.”
Source: Dan Lehman, Air Dynamics
Writer: John Steele.