A common practice in naval research is to construct brass models of ships to study the reflectivity of a vessel. This can (supposedly) be used to understand the way it reacts to radar and the way antennas on the ship might be affected by the ship.
This seems strange to me though because the wavelength of radar usually has an intimate relationship with the dimensions of the object being sensed. For example, if you have a radar with a 2 foot wavelength, it will not even see a 1 foot model model at all. So, how could a brass model possibly be of use? It would not seem to scale.
