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Technical Testing and Analysis Center (TTAC)

Topic:

TTAC offers testing of radiological, environmental, and electromagnetic compatibility, and mechanical environments to ensure equipment meets application needs.

TTAC staff set standards-based testing protocols and characterize field environments to establish the technical basis of requirements in radiation environments. Protocol validation testing verifies that requirements can be met in a reasonable amount of time. Testing through TTAC ensures radiological and environmental vulnerabilities and operational limitations are understood and either eliminated or mitigated prior to fielding a device. TTAC can also perform comparisons of commercial-off-the-shelf equipment capabilities, vulnerabilities, and limitations prior to procurement.

 

Research Application 
 

TTAC’s capabilities benefit research efforts and prototypes expected to be exposed to environmental, mechanical, radiological, or electromagnetic stressors such as high heat and humidity, extreme cold, mechanical impact, gamma radiation, and radio-frequency (RF) interference. TTAC can identify susceptibility to these effects in products applicable to many research areas, including electrical systems and electronics, building technologies, and transportation.

 

Capabilities
 

TTAC has a broad range of capabilities for simulating the following environmental conditions that can span 24-hour cycles, if necessary:

  • Temperature
  • Humidity
  • Air pressure (altitude)
  • Dust
  • Moisture
  • Magnetic fields
  • RF immunity
  • RF emissions
  • Line noise
  • Voltage variation
  • Vibration
  • Shock

TTAC has a full-time staff of engineers and technologists with over 25 years of combined experience. Our staff is active in standards development, including contributions to International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards. Additional experts are available when needed.

Equipment

Anechoic chamber

Moisture chamber for hot- and cold-water testing

GTEM

Magnetic field

Dust chamber

Shock drop

ETS Solutions vibration system

Radiological testing supplies and equipment

ECAT (3 models)

Ambient light chamber

Impact

Radiological testing equipment

Salt fog chamber

 

Accreditation
 

TTAC is accredited by the National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) to the ANSI/IEEE N42 Homeland Security Standards in the radiological, mechanical, environmental, and electromagnetic areas as well as to IEC radiation protection instrumentation standards. The TTAC scope of accreditation, NVLAP Lab Code 200861-0, is available on request or at nist.gov/nvlap.