Admiralty Research Establishment Glen Fruin

The Admiralty Research Establishment (ARE) at Glen Fruin is a test and development facility located to the east of Faslane on the Gare Loch.

The ARE was formerly the Admiralty Research Laboratory (ARL), where tests were conducted on bombs and torpedoes during World War II, to evaluate water entry characteristics in its various tanks, one of which holds some 250,000 gallons of water and is 150 ft in length. Its facilities were further developed as the Admiralty Hydro-Ballistic Research Establishment (AHBRE).

It would appear to have been used for the underwater testing of ejection seat systems during the 1960s, work given extra importance when a Scimitar pilot was lost after his aircraft sank and he could not escape.

In 1986, a report was issued with the abstract: The conversion of an experimental tank at Glen Fruin into one of the world's largest stratified test facilities is described. The stages of development and the commissioning tests are reported. The tank is shown to offer a stable environment for research on buoyancy influenced flows with relatively weak density gradients and a relatively large cross section.

The facility continues to operate and has passed from the MoD, to the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency (DERA), and then to QinetiQ as of June 2001, when much of DERA was privatised. The remainder becoming the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl), an agency of the UK Ministry of Defence.

External links

• The ARE (Admiralty Research Establishment) (Glen Fruin) Density Stratified Tank
• QinetiQ
• Dstl

Aerial views

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