[4] Throughout its long history, Watertown Arsenal maintained several laboratory facilities that conducted mechanical testing as well as research on material development and solid-state physics.

[1] The laboratory performed a wide range of special tasks from water-proofing paper cartridges to preparing ingredients for pyrotechnics, such as port-fires, fuzes, and signal rockets.

Renowned for inventing a casting process that significantly extended the lifespan of cast-iron guns, Rodman promoted scientific investigation at Watertown Arsenal during his tenure.

During the American Civil War, he supervised the construction of a second laboratory in 1862 and conducted metallurgical experiments and equipment tests in order to determine the best quality of iron for casting into guns.

[1][3][5] In the years following the Civil War, Rodman's work at Watertown Arsenal brought the U.S. Army Ordnance Department’s attention to the compound as a site for future materials testing.

[3] Its precision in being able to test the tensile and compressive strength of anything from an iron bar to a thin wire was celebrated as an unprecedented innovation in American engineering and military science.

Commercial manufacturers in iron and steel, bridge building, construction, railroad, and boiler industries leveraged the testing services offered by the laboratory to obtain data on various structural materials.

The range of materials tested during this 36-year period included iron, steel, brass, bronze, wood, stone, and concrete as well as miscellaneous items such as manila, cotton yarn, hemp, and roller skates.

By 1927, the laboratories at Buildings 71, 72, and 73 had obtained a wide variety of new equipment ranging from the nation's first Charpy impact testing machine to a diffraction x-ray apparatus for studying the atomic structure of metals.

Following the end of the Vietnam War, the budget squeezes and hiring freezes felt throughout the Army threatened to close AMMRC in 1984 due to the age of its facilities.

Finally, the decision to establish ARL in 1989 led to a recommendation by the Department of Defense in 1991 to consolidate the Army's corporate laboratories, including MTL, at Adelphi and Aberdeen, Maryland.

This process not only reduced the number of casting defects, but it also significantly decreased the manufacturing time and the amount of raw materials needed to produce a gun barrel.

Following the attacks on Pearl Harbor, Watertown Arsenal initially carried out the majority of the Army's gun tube manufacturing using this technique until contributions from private industry reached acceptable levels in 1942.

[8] After the Army experienced a series of cannon failures in World War II, Watertown Arsenal became the first U.S. facility to detect and record cracks on bore surfaces of gun tubes in a non-destructive manner.

Years later, AMRA and eventually AMMRC updated and refined the inspection process with the magnetic recording borescope to support the production of 175-mm gun tubes during the Vietnam War.

These advancements were largely spearheaded by Clarence Zener and John H. Hollomon Jr., both of whom published papers that enabled the modern theory of micromechanical behavior of metals to take shape.

This collaboration helped the laboratory gain access to new facilities for processing materials that were critical for developing nuclear munitions like depleted uranium and beryllium.

[8] During the Vietnam War, the threat from small-arms ammunition to low-flying helicopters caused the Army to seek out high-hardness, low-density materials to employ as lightweight armor.

The development of boron carbide composite armor progressed rapidly from laboratory demonstration to large-scale production and fielding in about two years, and over 30,000 sets of aircrew torso shields were sent to allied forces in Vietnam.

AMMRC conducted these flammability assessments on various systems, including the GUARDRAIL Tactical Shelter, M109 Howitzer, and various composite armors and spall liners, for the purposes of fire safety.

Researchers also conducted tests on the M2 Bradley’s resin matrix composites to verify that they presented a minimal fire hazard in case the vehicle received damage on the battlefield.

[8] In the early 1970s, AMMRC launched a large-scale scientific investigation into the electroslag remelting (ESR) process to address the high cost of various hard steels that the Army saw as potential armor candidates.

The ESR process involved simple equipment and yielded favorable metallurgical results, which led AMMRC to view it as a method of producing high-quality but low-cost steel.

This discovery led to the development of a new type of ceramic that saw commercial applications in turbocharger rotors, diesel engine components, ball bearings, and cutting tools.

It was initially produced when researchers at AMMRC were investigating silicon nitride for gas turbine applications and discovered an opportunity to create an aluminum oxide material that was 100 percent nitrogen-stabilized.

The armor materials systems designed by AMMRC featured a metal front plate, either aluminum or hard steel, backed by a fiber-reinforced organic matrix composite, often Kevlar.

Over the course of seven years, researchers at AMMRC provided routine assistance on the choice of steel and processing methods for Copperhead's control housing as well as fracture mechanics analysis on the projectile.

A complete stress analysis carried out by AMMRC revealed the presence of high tensile strength at irregular points and led to a redesign of Copperhead.

The second phase concluded in 1993 after program managers successfully tested a new modular armor system capable of defeating both 12.7-mm armor-piercing B32 bullets and 23-mm MG25 fuzed threats.

[8] Beginning in 1986, MTL researchers collaborated with the Land Systems Division of General Dynamics to find a more cost-effective weld shielding gas mixture for the M1 Abrams tank.