The Air Force Research Laboratory has developed an environmentally controlled enclosure that can heat up an entire aircraft at temperatures upwards of 180 degrees Fahrenheit to eliminate approximately 99.9 percent of biological contaminants.Wendy Goodson, AFRL biological materials team lead, supported the test and validation of the Joint Biological Agent Decontamination System designed to mitigate personnel exposure risks of aircraft surface contaminant, the U.S. Air Force said Sunday.
“Microorganisms can eat away at surface materials, and some of the worst areas affected are tight, hard-to-reach areas that maintainers have difficulty disinfecting,†noted Goodson.
The service branch added JBADS offers full decontamination of an aircraft in hours which reduces manpower and work hours spent using traditional systems that could take up to a few days.
Air Force also said it uses an estimated $1.2 billion on microbiologically influenced corrosion along with the biofuel fouling, storage tank, structure cleaning and other preventative and maintenance costs of warfighters.
