Titusville, FL
This 10,220 square meter facility includes numerous single story high bay spaces ranging in height from 18 to 40 meters. Each high bay space contains an overhead bridge crane ranging in capacity from 20 to 55 tons. There are 9 vertical lift doors up to 27 meters in height on both interior and exterior walls. The majority of the facility is a low level clean room environment.
The lateral force resisting system for this building had to accommodate the clear spans in the high bay areas while still resisting the hurricane force design winds. Lateral deflections of the building had to remain within the acceptable tolerances for operation of the overhead cranes. The structural design incorporates the need for blast resistance to contain the pressure and fragments resulting from an explosion within the building. Large (610 mm thick by 40 meters high) concrete blast walls help ensure that adjacent spaces housing highly valuable satellites and other materials are unaffected by such accidental blasts.
The civil design includes extensive site grading, over 460 linear meters of new roadways, utility systems, and storm water management system. In order to handle tropical storms in this environmentally sensitive area, a system of retention and detention ponds were designed to the strict requirements of the St. John’s River Water Management District.
Sea Launch Home Port Facility
Long Beach, CA
This project consisted of the design of buildings and facilities to integrate equipment, supplies, personnel and procedures at the Home Port to receive, transport, process, test and integrate the spacecraft and associated support equipment with the launch system.
Specific features of the project include: a payload processing facility (PPF), Sea Launch office building, customer office building, and storage facilities for rocket stages, propellants, ordnance, support equipment and miscellaneous supplies required at the Sea Launch home port. The project required a blast resistant structure for the fueling of the satellites.
Wildman & Morris‘s work consisted of the structural design of the PPF and modification existing buildings (offices, warehouses, etc.). The structural design for the PPF included a blast resistant concrete shell to DoD blast standards with a steel braced frame. Design for venting of the building due to a blast is provided for by the release of the metal siding and roof panels above the blast resistant shell. The entire structure is supported on deep driven piles to allow for possible soil liquafaction in the event of an earthquake. Civil engineering services provided by Wildman & Morris were significant for the entire Sea Launch site, with special emphasis of the transportation route for the truck mounted payload assemblies from the PPF to the launch platform pier. Other components of the design include extensive grading for the PPF and access roads, new pavement, new fire protection and domestic water lines, new sanitary sewer and storm drainage systems as well as various ancillary systems such as natural gas.
The work also included a study to determine the feasibility of storing rocket stages in the warehouse building. The stages contain explosive devices and pyrophoric liquids as shipped from the manufacturer. The study made recommendations to the local Fire Marshal on how to deal with the stored rocket stages.
