Wind tunnel test facility

USA / Maryland / Bowleys Quarters /
 ruins, chemical warfare
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Evidently there was a wind tunnel here from 1953 to 1971 that was used to test chemical warfare agents in a sealed environment and at high velocity. I have no idea precisely what the tests consisted of, but it was bad enough that the building was torn down to the foundation and shipped offsite for disposal in 1991, several years before the rest of the island was remediated.
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Coordinates:   39°18'56"N   76°19'57"W

Comments

  • It was a sealed building designed by Edgewood to test gas mask filters and protective suits. They'd put the gear on dummies and blast them with live chemical and simulant biological agents to try and simulate worst-case test scenarios from battlefield bombs (large amounts of agent blown at high speed). Rather than bothering with filters for the exhaust, the building was intentionally sited so it would blow the exhaust out the back (east) of the building, which dispersed the chemicals over Gunpowder Bay and the southern peninsula of Edgewood Arsenal. Blowing chemical warfare agents into the air 5 miles away from the suburbs of Baltimore was extremely controversial even in the early 1960s, and apparently the Army made them stop running the wind tunnel until they put filters on, which didn't happen before the island closed.
This article was last modified 2 years ago