Facilities and Technical Support

Introduction

The Facilities and Technical Support Section  (FTS) provides a wide range of technical and manufacturing support to Test and Evaluation projects, as well as maintaining the facility infrastructure. Support capabilities include:

• Chemical Analysis
• Instrumentation
• Metrology
• Photography
• Drafting and Animation
• Mechanical Assembly and Manufacturing

Chemical Analysis

The NETE Laboratory conducts evaluations, chemical analyses and physical tests on materials and equipment including:

• Fuel and lubricant testing;
• Chemical and physical testing of metals;
• Fluid analysis for Equipment Health Monitoring programs;
• Evaluation of Health and Safety test methods and equipment;
• Evaluation and testing of shipboard NBCD filter stations;
• Testing of effluents for compliance with environmental regulations; and
• Evaluation of software tools for analysis of laboratory data.

Instrumentation

The Instrumentation group designs, installs, and operates control and data acquisition instrumentation for the test and evaluation of shipboard structures, machinery and systems. Typical applications involve recording strain, torque, vibration, shock, noise, speed, load, as well as environmental conditions such as temperature, pressure and humidity.

A wide range of transducers, signal conditioners and data acquisition systems are available at NETE, including:

• Portable, self-contained single channel digital recorders;
• Multichannel digital and analog tape recorders;
• Multichannel chart recorders;
• VXI based acquisition and control instrumentation;
• Single and dual channel signal analysers;
• High-gain, low-noise amplifiers;
• Accelerometers;
• Thermocouples and RTDs; and
• LVDTs and Load cells.

Metrology

The Metrology services include non-destructive testing; dimensional inspections; laser and optical measurements and alignments; and bearing failure analysis.

The Metrology equipment includes:

• Optical Comparators;
• Laser alignment equipment;
• Video Microscope;
• Boroscopes;
• Bearing analysers;
• Hardness tester;
• Ultrasonic flaw detector; and
• Ultrasonic thickness measurement equipment.

Photography

Photography services are available to record and present T&E events using still photography; video recording; and digital image processing. This allows NETE to prepare and print in-house professional colour reports, including those classified as SECRET.

The photography facilities available are:

• High speed (12,000 frames/sec) digital video system;
• Digital still photography system with digital camera, scanner, and dye-sublimation printer; and
• Computerised video editing system with Multi-signal VCRs.

Drafting and Animation

Drafting and animation capabilities include a Computer Assisted Drafting (CAD) station capable of producing two and three dimensional drawings, solid modelling, and animation of engineering designs. Scanning and editing of drawings up to size E, and photo quality printing from size A to size E on standard paper can be done in-house.

Mechanical Assembly and Manufacturing

NETE has in-house facilities to support fabrication, assembly and service requirements. Shop services include machining, welding, carpentry, electrical installation, and mechanical assembly. Resources include:

• Cooling water to 454 m3/h, 8.8 MW at 24C;
• Superheated and saturated steam;
• Low and high pressure air;
• Petroleum fuel storage and supply;
• Boring mills, lathe, milling machines;
• MIG, TIG, and oxy-acetylene welding; and
• Overhead rolling bridge crane with 13363 kg capacity and forklift with 1818 kg capacity.