Force Protection / Blast Mitigation

All branches of the military including army, navy, air force, marines, have vast inventories of infrastructure that require force protection and hardening against blast load effects.  These facilities may be at home or abroad in potentially hostile territories.  The force protection may be from outside threats with a focus on the buildings in the perimeter of a base or freestanding buildings among civilian facilities in metropolitan areas.  They could similarly include buildings located within a military base. 

QuakeWrap® force protection and hardening systems have been tested at government laboratories and the details of these tests to indicate their effectiveness have been published in engineering magazines.  Carbon FRP products can be applied to the exterior surfaces of walls, floors and columns making them significantly more resilient to resisting loads and pressures that must be resisted during a blast or explosion event.   These thin and lightweight materials can often be hidden in floor and wall architectural finishes to make them invisible after the retrofit is completed.  The FRP system can also be used as a curtain not directly bonded to the walls to serve as a “netting” that will catch any flying debris and projectiles launched by a blast or explosion event. 

In most cases, QuakeWrap engineers can provide a complete “turnkey” design-build solution that includes sealed engineering drawings by our in-house engineers, all of the materials needed, and installation by one of our approved and certified installers.  This unique turnkey design-build approach results in significant efficiency, time and cost-savings, and minimizes the potential errors and delays that can result when multiple groups are involved in one project. 

 QuakeWrap® also welcomes the opportunity to partner with owners, architects, engineers and contractors by providing any single aspect of the project, i.e., design, materials, or installation for a specific project.

The following articles provide additional information on hardening and force protection of structures that might be of interest to you: