10. Predicting Flight Environments with a Small-Scale, Direct-Field Acoustic Test Facility

In order to predict flight environments for ground support equipment, a small-scale, direct-field acoustic test (DFAT) laboratory was recently constructed at Sandia National Laboratories. This unique laboratory setup—consisting of 24 commercial off-the-shelf monitor speakers driven by a multi-input multi-output control system—was capable of exciting the component with an acoustic environment of 103 dB overall sound pressure level (OASPL). The resulting measured data was used to predict the flight environment response of the component and to derive vibration test specifications for future mechanical shaker testing. This paper describes the small-scale DFAT laboratory setup, the applied acoustic test method, and the process used to predict the flight environments for the given ground support equipment.