Design of the GE aircraft engine compact range facility

Abstract

GE Aircraft Engines (GEAE) in Cincinnati, Ohio recently built a compact range facility to operate from 800 MHz to 18 GHz. The design process included visits to other recently completed facilities so that industry best practices could be incorporated into the design of the state-of-the-art facility. The facility includes a 30x30x65 ft. chamber, corner fed blended rolled edge reflector, Chebyshev multilevel absorbers, a 12 ft. diameter turntable and a rail mounted gantry crane for target mounting. Facility design, chamber, reflector, absorber, target handling and fire protection systems are discussed. The performance of the facility is discussed elsewhere (see Gupta, I.J. et al., AMTA 22nd Meeting and Symposium Proceedings, 2000). The facility was built to meet two primary objectives: (1) perform production acceptance testing of GEAE engine components; (2) to support advanced technology research and development programs.