MIL-STD-810H: Test Plan Development

MIL-STD-810H is a huge guide for testing of military equipment for military platforms. This means, the described tests must be tailored to fit into your equipment’s intended functions and for the targeted platform use. For this reason, tailoring is essential for developing a test plan for 810 testing. And therefore, developing a test plan for testing of your equipment per MIL-STD-810H may take between 1 month to 6 months, easily. We strongly recommend not to wait until the end of testing cycle to complete your test plan. Rather, the test plan must be developed as early as possible, in the initial stage of the project start, before design level efforts start.

There several reasons of completing a test plan early, some of these are:

• The specific tests to perform affect your design. The designers must know the test type, test limits, and durations when selecting the solutions.
• A test plan should be complete and used for presenting it to the customer and stakeholders. Early agreements on the tests help identify your design limits early.

• Selection of test methods and rationale
• Selection of procedures and test type
• Equipment to use
• Identifying the test limits and durations
• Developing a detail test procedures and associated forms

We study the Operational Requirements and Life Cycle Environmental Profile for your equipment and develop test requirements. If Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) document do nto exist we develop it or develop Operational Requirements document using the available information. With this study, tests selected, methods, procedures, and envelopes to use become specific for testing of your equipment. Unlike other test plans, a test plan development for MIL-STD-810 may take between 1 month to 6 months.

For your military equipment, we develop test requirements, environmental test plans and test reports, with a research and study with the followin order:

We first develop test requirements, with identifying

• equipment characteristics, functions, modes, and other specfics
• platform requirements
• applicable equipment specs
• equipment’s installation zone in the platform
• relevant rules and regulations
• relevant test standards
• other applicable standards
• test tailoring considerations: Environmental and Mission Profiles)

And develop TEST REQUIREMENTS

• Please note that the test requirements may include tests from other standards. For example Fire Flammability testing may be a requirement for your equipment and that is not included in MIL-STD-810.
• Test requirements are list of the requirement statements and rationale.

Then, we develop Test Plan accordingly. When test plan is complete, that is when the test budget could be recommended.

Our team has experienced test managers, Certified Verification Engineers (CVEs), and submect matter experts. If not, we will propose you appropriate team but we will fully manage the project. In our team, Dr. Ismail Cicek worked in several test locations in the USA and Turkey and still managing a test facility called Marine Equipment Test Center (METC) in Tuzla, Istanbul. He has completed more than fifty test projects in the USA test labs where he worked and now more in numbers at METC together with the METC personnel.

MIL-STD-810H, US DOD Test Standard, starts with an important phrase at the beginning paragraph of each of the 28 test methods: “Tailoring is Essential.” It is therefore crucial to understand what this means and how to tailor the test methods for specific equipment, considering the platform, mission, and environmental requirements.

GDS Engineering R&D provides MIL-STD-810H training online or onsite. Performing operations in various parts of the world, we have been providing this course to the defence industry strategists, leaders, program managers, projects managers, designers, and test engineers for more than 10 years. With long years of background in test projects in the USA and Turkey, Dr. Cicek, the main lecturer of this training, explains the tailoring concepts with specific examples.

This course provides with information and knowledge of experience on how to develop Concepts of Operations (CONOPS) document and Lice Cycle Environmental Profile (LCEP) to derive operational therefore test requirements for the Equipment Under Test (EUT). Understading the tailoring part of MIL-STD-810H is probably the most important aspect of this test standard training, due to the following reasons:

• Developing a test plan for MIL-STD-810H equipment testing might be a confusing and time consuming process.
• Training will provide an understanding into why and when CONOPS document is needed and how test requirements are established along with Mission and Environmental profiles of the EUT. These are all covered by both presentations and specific product examples through discussions during the training sessions.
• In test method discussions, the instructor discuss “what items” (i.e. test levels) and “how” they will be tailored with specific examples.

Test methods, i.e. temperature, humidity, temperature shock, require mission and environmental profiles are established for successfully determining the test levels, durations, and criteria for pass or fail.

A Generalized Task Statement for Tailoring: Condider the environmental effects. An example list is provided with a list below. Develop exposure curves considering exposure scenarios. For this, use/develop CONOPS document and generate a Life Cycle Environmental Profile (LCEP).

• Environmental effects (temperature, humidity, icing, etc.) to the equipment in different operational modes: i.e. transportation, operation, and stand-by. Condider these effects with scenarious and develop exposure curves.
• Equipment vulnarabilities under the environmental/operational conditions.
• Effects caused by the platform operations (vibrations, shock, etc.)
• The effect due to the platform environment; various conditions in the section the equipment will be operating. For example, the equipment might be exposed to fluid contamination in the section where it will be installed.
• Equipment’s effect to the environment and systems (EMI, vibrations, fluid contamination, fire and flammability, etc.)
• Consider risks of operational breakdowns with “what if” scenarios

How does Life Cycle Environmental Profile (LCEP) affect the test procedures?

• LCEP should be developed for selecting the levels and durations of the environmental tests, especially the ones include climatic data.
• Each operational modes (transportation, operational, storage, stand-by, etc.) should be considered.
• Equipment that is diretly exposed to the external environment should consider the meteorological data, provided in MIL-STD-810H Part I and Part III as well as MIL-STD-310 and AECTPs.
• Equipment that is not directly exposed to external environment should consider internal conditions, considering the maximum levels and duration of exposure.

How does Mission Profile affect the test procedures?

• Equipment’s modes and the durations to exposures could only be identified with clearly specifying the mission profile for the equipment.

Your equipment, for example, could be a device that must demonstrate the fire resistance. In that case, it is important to understand the aircraft fire zones and applicable procedures. For this, we not only review the test standard but also FAA/EASA documents to fully understand the described requirements and specs to develop a test case and procedure.

Risk analysis is another consideration.

• The results are not aloways pass or fail. We perform risk analysis to demonstrate and if the result is negligable recommend alternate methods to pass. For items do not pass the tests, we recommend design changes based on similar equipment tests or results.

Tailoring is Essential: Our dedicated page describes more about tailoring.

Training on MIL-STD-810H Testing: Our online training details are provided. A good training helps your personnel develop better test plans and save time, effort, and money at the project completion.

Check out our calendar for training programs: GDS Training Calendar.

Systems Engineering training courses provided by GDS Engineering R&D (including MIL-STD-810H, RTCA-DO-160G, MIL-STD-461G, Requirements Management, MIL-STD-704F, and EMI/EMC General Training: Information are provided in this page.