THE OPPORTUNITY
The U.S. Army needed to deploy telecommunication shelters in remote areas of Afghanistan.
THE CHALLENGE
The telecommunications shelters needed to be designed to be transported to the sites via a number of different transportation methods. The shelters needed to be of standard size and of limited weight for shipping. The shelters also had to be designed to be relocated on very short notice. The shelters also had to be resistant to the high seismic activity in the areas of deployment.
THE PS&S SOLUTION
PS&S provided structural engineering services for a modular manufacturer.
To facilitate deployment, and future redeployment, standard ISO shipping containers were used as the basic structure of the shelter. The containers needed to be reinforced in order to be capable of resisting the severe seismic loading of the areas of deployment, and to be able to protect the sensitive equipment inside of the shelter.
Finite element analysis and design software was utilized to perform the seismic analysis. Various methods of isolation were also analyzed to mitigate the shock to the equipment in the container.