NIAR's Full Scale Structural Testing Laboratory is located at the Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (HBC) manufacturing plant in Wichita, Kan., in a facility known as the NIAR Aircraft Structural Testing and Evaluation Center (ASTEC). The center provides structural testing to aircraft manufacturers as well as governmental agencies. Originally built to conduct testing on the then Beech Aircraft Corporation products, the ASTEC facility is now leased from the Hawker Beechcraft Company (formerly Raytheon Aircraft Corporation) and is secured from the other Hawker Beechcraft facilities and personnel. The ASTEC test personnel are also mostly former Raytheon Aircraft Structural Test personnel and have a combination of over 400 years of test and test-related experience.

The ASTEC facility provides an area roughly the size of a football field to hold numerous articles and associated fixturing. Approximately one-fourth of this space includes a structural floor with steel beams on six-foot centers and overhead steel super structure to provide rapid setup for component through complete airframe structural static testing. The remaining floor space is utilized principally for specialized fixtures to house components through complete airframes for durability and damage tolerance testing and for Aging Aircraft programs.

Typical tests range from full airframe durability and damage tolerance testing with 70 or more load systems and hundreds of data channels to single channel coupon or component testing. Although the lab’s main focus area is aircraft structural testing, any type of article will be considered. Items tested range from wind generator blades to communication pole reinforcements.

Capabilities include: test load development from supplied aircraft loads; test fixture design and fabrication, load system design and fabrication, strain gage and miscellaneous transducer installation, data and load control system development and installation, testing services and data handling.

Customers include: FAA, DoD, Hawker Beechcraft Company, Boeing Integrated Defense Systems, The Boeing Company, Spirit Aerosystems, Sikorsky, Liberty Aircraft, Epic Aircraft, BCI Wireless and others.