Shelters and CBRNE Defense
PROTECTION FROM AGENTS AS WELL AS ELEMENTS
As warfighters may spend many days working and living in deployable shelters, the DoD is concerned about keeping those structures as safe as possible from exposure to chemical or biological agents via enemy attack. As such, these defense contractors have found ways to enable some of their shelters to provide protection against attacks using chemical and biological agents to keep warfighters inside their shelters safe.
In addition, manufacturers of military shelters have designed specific shelter systems for decontaminating warfighters and civilians alike exposed to chemical and biological agents.
At DoD, responsibilities for developing these safeguards often fall to the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical and Biological Defense (JPEO CBD), which pulls the brightest minds in chemical and biological defense from across the services to create solutions for individual and collective protection of warfighters.
For example, last April Stanley Enatsky, the JPEO CBD project manager for collective protection, gave a presentation outlining his office’s goals for working with industry to produce a range of chemical and biological protective solutions—and shelters certainly were a focus area of that presentation.
Enatsky noted that his office had responsibility to “research, develop, procure, field and dispose of collective protection equipment and systems that protect personnel and equipment within controlled boundaries from chemical, biological, radiological and toxic industrial contamination” in support of military strategy.
Development of such collective protection systems would lead to the ability to create toxin-free areas that would enable warfighters to go about their business at nearly normal rates regardless of any hazardous environment outside of their areas.
Intelligent collective protection shelters appear as a specific far-term goal for fiscal 2014 and beyond, according to the presentation. In near-term goals, the development of advanced filtration systems would permit the development of shelters that would depend on “smart filtration” systems to react to contaminants.
Technical challenges for toxic-free shelter systems include the production of advanced air filtration systems, intelligent permeable materials, and new approaches to collective expeditionary protection, according to Enatsky’s presentation.
FILTRATION METHODS
Brian Dearing, Base-X vice president of business development, explained that his company is a sister company to Hunter Manufacturing, under the umbrella of Hunter Defense Technologies. Hunter Manufacturing is one of the world’s leading developers of chemical and biological filtration units for the entire U.S. military.
“So we bring a tremendous amount of technology and experience in chemical and biological protection to the fight when we put together a chemical/biological protective shelter system,” Dearing stated.
Base-X technology has proved its worth in tests at the U.S. Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center under demonstrations for the Chemical Biological Protective Shelter (CBPS) System. “The Base X-Chemical and Biological Protective Shelter Unit did very, very well at the testing at Edgewood,” Dearing elaborated. “The folks at Edgewood are a very tough crowd to please—and rightfully so, as this is a very important thing. We were very happy to excel within their tests.”
The trials are part of a spiral development program under Joint Expeditionary Collective Protection (JECP) at JPEO CBD. The JECP program remains an open competition at present, but Base-X has been designated as one of the shelters of choice within the program.
“We have a great chemical and biological protective shelter out there. We have to wait and see where the JECP program decides to go, but we are excited to be part of it,” he added.
Meanwhile, the National Guard has been making use of Base-X shelters with chemical and biological protective systems. The National Guard provides civil support teams (CSTs) throughout the United States with responsibility to act as first responders during the occurrence of a serious chemical or biological incident. These CSTs would conduct assessments, conduct initial decontamination, and carry out other essential tasks to protect people and the environment.
“Base X is in use by many CSTs either as a decontamination shelter or as a medical shelter or a modesty shelter for undress and redress pre- and post-decon,” Dearing said.
The CSTs may respond first to chemical and biological incidents, but the U.S. military also has outfitted Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosive (CBRNE) Enhanced Response Force Packages (CERFPs) to provide more robust capability in response to an attack. About a dozen of these units stand ready in case a large CBRNE event occurs.
“They are going to have a more robust response capability, including a more full medical capability and a more full decontamination capability,” Dearing described. “We provide all of the medical shelters for all of the CERFPs.”
POSITIVE PRESSURE
Mobile Medical International Corp. (MMIC) provides an integrated nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) filtration system as part of the Universal Support System for its shelter structures. The company’s NBC filtration system includes a variable speed motor-blower assembly, computerized flow control, and dust separation and pre-filtering. It accepts standard DoD gas and particulate filter sets, according to MMIC.
MMIC takes extraordinary care to meet military specifications (MILSPEC) for chemical and biological conditions, said Rick Cochran, MMIC president and CEO. “This is a very stringent MILSPEC testing process. We have been spending hundreds of thousands of dollars going through the MILSPEC testing for all of our various facets— durability testing, snow load testing, cold and heat, and of course chemical and biological,” Cochran observed. “They test pressure differentials, and they want to make sure that you are pressurized and can maintain that for chemical and biological conditions.”
One method of dealing with operations in a hazardous environment is to establish an airlock within a shelter system and to run pressurized air when a warfighter enters an airlock to keep contaminants outside of the shelter.
“We have real concern when you put on a vestibule and you have an airlock and people coming in and out,” Cochran commented. “That becomes a real concern during purge time. Generally, we are looking at an operational load of about 200 CFM. When you go through that purge cycle, we step that cycle up to about 400 CFM and keep things going much quicker and safer to meet the soldier’s needs.”
The NBC filtration system is a dualmode system. It runs as a normal airflow system under normal circumstances, but it has the ability to switch into chemical and biological mode when necessary. The MMIC shelters also make use of an integrated chemical/biological liner to defend against chemical and biological agents.
Protective liners are a popular way for many shelter manufacturers to add a degree of chemical and biological protection to their systems. CAMSS shelters, for example, use existing protective liners to ward off chemical and biological threats.
MEDICAL ISOLATION
To date, however, manufacturers place more emphasis on developing an excellent filtration system to deal with chemical and biological threats. At Reeves EMS, the company’s biological isolation shelter relies upon a positive/negative filtration system to prevent the spread of biological agents.
The isolation shelters can house two beds in their smallest size or up to 14 beds in their largest size, said Naeran Rubio, DHS Systems communications specialist. Each shelter has a two-layer lining. Each layer is separated by a foot of air space.
“That insulates the shelter,” Rubio explained. “It is a challenge to keep the biological contaminant inside the shelter but it does that without compromising air quality. We use a positive/negative filtration system.
“The actual lining of the shelter does not necessarily keep biological agents in but rather the filtration system does that,” she said.
The positive/negative pressure isolation shelter is a Reeves DRASH shelter with a five-stage HEPA filtration system. The powerful filter generates up to 2,500 CFMs for more than enough power to meet requirements from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 12 air changes per hour for 12,500 square feet. DHS Systems also offers a 1,250 CFM unit for smaller spaces.
The patented five-stage HEPA filter system contains external and internal filters and uses activated carbon for absorbing gases and controlling odors. The system provides high defense against particles and germs. Operators can set the variable pressure range on the system.
CONTAMINATION
MMIC and other manufacturers also make shelters specially designed to decontaminate those who may have been exposed to CBRNE agents or elements. MMIC offers about 12 different sizes of decontamination systems, ranging from individual decon shelters to three-lane decon systems.
“One of the highlights of our decon system is that we are able to set up and decontaminate in a small situation, certainly, but we can also set up for a large situation like 9/11 where you would have a lot of people going through a decontamination system,” Rubio said. “The capabilities are very good without sacrificing any quality in large situations.”
The three-lane decontamination system could process 180 patients per hour, depending on the size, weight and age of a person and how quickly the pace of people through the shelter proceeds. Testing of the 3-lane system has used a minimum of 5 gallons of heated decontamination solution per patient in each lane. It also delivered 2 gallons per minute of water in each lane for rinsing via the Reeves G2-I water heater.
“We are able to keep the water temperature at a very stable temperature,” Rubio added. “You don’t want water to be too hot because it will open pours and trap contaminants in the skin. You don’t want it to be too cold, either, as that could cause hypothermia if the weather is not ideal. We have a very good water heater that can be kept 100 feet away from the shelter so it does not go into the contamination zone.” ♦