To effectively protect personnel in an emergency, you need tough, durable structures capable of withstanding potential hazards. BakerRisk’s industry experience and expert design insights allow us to provide several structural solutions for your facility, including precast concrete multi-hazard resistant buildings, shock and fragment enclosures, and pre-engineered metal buildings (PEMBs). We assist with the design, manufacturing, delivery, and installation of new structures, and upgrades to existing structures on your worksites.
Multi-hazard defense
Leveraging BakerRisk’s decades of R&D, the investigation of hundreds of incidents, and 40+ years of assisting clients in personnel protection, BakerRisk developed the FORTRESS Protective Buildings — a Multi-Hazard Resistant Building (MRB) — to provide the optimal structural solutions to protect workers and critical assets from hazards that may be present at industrial facilities handling flammable, toxic, explosive, or energetic materials.
Multi-hazard resistance
BakerRisk conducted two series of blast tests for FORTRESS Protective Buildings using the Shock Tube Test Rig at their Wilfred E. Baker Test Facility. The first series of tests was on the joint between two concrete modules and included the panel joint, corner joint, and reaction frame. The second series was on the FORTRESS blast, fire, and smoke resistant door mounted in a FORTRESS concrete panel. Both series of tests were conducted using a 10’ × 10’ target area in the shock tube.
The concrete panel was tested five times and remains in our specimen yard today, demonstrating the true resilience of FORTRESS! Results indicated negligible vulnerability at design basis blast loads.
BakerRisk conducted projectile testing of a representative FORTRESS wall panel in the High-Pressure Test Rig at the Wilfred E. Baker Test Facility. These tests, which were conducted using a gas gun developed by BakerRisk for fragment throw, confirmed that FORTRESS’s 8-inch reinforced concrete design provides protection from fragment throw equivalent to ¾” thick steel!
Thermal radiation testing of the concrete panel at the joint seal between modules was conducted using impinged jet fire in the Process Safety Test Rig at BakerRisk’s Wilfred E. Baker Test Facility.
BakerRisk has developed FORTRESS to resist gas infiltration in an emergency, and it includes an additional inner room that is even more leak tight for use as a Shelter-In-Place (SIP).
FORTRESS has inherent gas ingress protection due to the limited gaps in the building shell design as well as the vestibules at building entrances/exits. Additional safety features for prevention of gas ingress results in an air exchange rate (measured in ACH) between the FORTRESS building and the outside of <0.08ACH, which drops to <0.026ACH for an interior SIP room.
Every worksite must account for staff protection during an emergency or natural disaster. Protecting workers is of chief importance during hazards associated with natural disasters as well as potential knock-on effects associated with blast, fire, or other possible operational impacts during a naturally occurring event.
Planning and safety drills only get you so far. Investing in a disaster-resilient FORTRESS is one of the best ways to ensure that your employees are protected during unexpected events.
Our Projects
Hazard containment structural solutions
We have developed our Shock and Fragment Enclosure (SAFE™) to provide clients with efficient and reliable structural solutions to safely conduct hazardous tests. SAFE™ designs address potential hazards from hydrostatic and pneumatic pressure, battery abuse testing, rotating equipment, explosives, and hydrogen generation and storage. Each SAFE™ is completely customizable based on the specific size and hazard requirements. SAFE™ provides a single point of contact for design, construction, and installation of testing enclosures.
Use Cases
Following guidance from ASME PCC-2 and HSE GS4, barricades or enclosures may be required when the risk from projectiles or blast loads is high. SAFE™ provides protection from high-velocity projectiles, blast loads, and liquid jetting from the pressure testing of equipment.
SAFE™ provides protection from potential fires and explosions that may occur during abuse testing of lithium-ion batteries. Industries served include automotive, battery manufacturers, and BESS.
SAFE™ provides protection from high-speed blade projectiles that may occur during the testing of rotating equipment. Industries served include manufacturing, heavy industry, and engine manufacturing.
SAFE™ provides protection from explosion hazards associated with the handling or storage of explosives. Industries served include military, space, and explosive manufacturing.
SAFE™ provides protection from explosions, projectiles, and high-pressure release hazards. Industry applications include electrolyzers, generators, and storage cylinders.
Our Products
Pre-engineered Metal Buildings
BakerRisk has teamed with Rigid Global Buildings (Rigid) for the design, manufacturing, and delivery of blast-resistant pre-engineered metal buildings (PEMBs). Blast-resistant PEMBs provide an economical structural solution to address design requirements for buildings ranging from Control Rooms, Laboratories, Maintenance Buildings, and Fire Water Pumphouses.
PEMB Details
The blast-resistant PEMB is designed specifically for the blast load hazard and the building size. Coupling the customized blast-resistant design with a proven economical construction method results in a cost-effective structural solution to meet design requirements.
PEMBs have been designed to serve multiple functions ranging from multi-story lunchrooms to maintenance buildings with 100-foot clear spans. PEMB construction also provides the opportunity to incorporate distinctive exterior finishes, blast-resistant windows, and other features to make your building stand out.
Blast-resistant PEMBs can be designed to resist moderate blast loads typical of chemical processing facilities. By customizing the design of structural elements, higher blast loads can be resisted while still providing the level of protection required.
BakerRisk has partnered with Rigid Global Buildings, a leader in the PEMB industry, to deliver blast-resistant metal building designs. Through our partnership, BakerRisk-designed PEMBs can be delivered to project sites across all of North America.
Our PEMB Projects
Our Specialists
Related Resources
Operation and testing of high-pressure products and equipment are commonly completed in a variety of industrial applications, including oilfield services, industrial gas manufacturing and supply, heat exchangers, refining, chemical, petrochemical, water jetting, and vessel manufacturing, among others.
Blast resistant design, a field that has evolved over decades, is a critical component of ensuring the safety and integrity of facilities in industries with explosion hazards, and, within this context, the strategic placement of structures, or building siting, plays a pivotal role.
Discover how expertly designed barricades and solutions, such as BakerRisk’s Shock And Fragment Enclosure (SAFE™), are proven to mitigate hazards.
Pre-incident planning and blast resistant buildings can make a huge difference in the event of a vapor cloud explosion. Are you prepared?
BakerRisk is pleased to present three topics for the 2023 AIChE Spring Meeting and 18th GCPS technical program, and exhibit at booth 200.
This presentation will cover some unique design features of a blast resistant tent specifically designed for blast response. The presentation will also showcase some modeling and testing performed to validate the tents’ blast performance to satisfy API 756.
BakerRisk is excited to share that our expertly designed and engineered FORTRESS Protective Building has officially been patented by the US Department of Commerce.
Our team will be presenting the following topics at the Virtual Texas/Louisiana EHS Seminar, June 7 & 8, 2021.
Has facility siting identified a need for a hazard resistant building to mitigate your facility risk? Work with BakerRisk to identify whether a building upgrade, a new build, Rigid Pre-Engineered Metal Building, or a FORTRESS Protective Building LLC is the right solution for you.
BakerRisk is excited to introduce FORTRESS Protective Buildings, LLC (FORTRESS) as the go-to provider of buildings proven to protect personnel in high-hazard environments.
This paper presents probability density function parameters and a mathematical model to simulate the stress-strain behavior of reinforcing steel bars under uniaxial monotonic loading at different rates.
Join BakerRisk at the Downstream 2019 Exhibition & Conference in Houston, Texas on June 11 – 12, 2019.
Contact: +1 (210) 824-5960
