In the late 2010s, FORTRESS Protective Buildings set out to develop the next generation of blast-resistant precast concrete protective buildings. Their mission was to create a permanent structure designed using modular units with unparalleled blast, fire, fragment, extreme weather, and toxic resistance — a veritable stronghold capable of keeping both people and critical equipment safe in the industry’s most hazardous environments. To bring this concept to life, FORTRESS partnered with Tindall as the sole precast provider to deliver a modular, 100% precast, and consistently high-performance solution.
Owner
Petrochemical Facility
Architect
FORTRESS Protective Buildings, LLC
Contractor
Bartlett Cocke General Contractors
Location
U.S. Gulf Coast
FORTRESS’s patented design concept includes a number of proprietary elements which combine to provide people, critical equipment, and infrastructure the best high-hazard protection available in a modular component permanent building. Tindall supported the FORTRESS team throughout the design’s two-year, full-scale R&D testing by designing and producing the module’s precast concrete forms, providing constructability feedback, and offering fabrication improvements. Tindall closely collaborated with FORTRESS to meet their team’s rigorous requirements, including tolerances for the connection of adjacent modules, dimensional tolerances, and repeatability between successive castings.
To produce the FORTRESS, Tindall designed and developed a custom form capable of creating three unique module layouts in a single piece of formwork: An interior module with one exterior wall, a “right” module with two adjacent exterior walls forming a right angle, and a “left module that mirrors the right module. Each precast concrete module measures 10 ft x 16 ft x 10.5 ft. The module walls are cast monolithically with the floor and roof slab.
For the entry to the building, a separate form is used to cast the vestibule modules, with the roof and four walls cast monolithically and the floor as a secondary pour. These modules are then bolted together on site, allowing the entire building erection to be achieved in a matter of days.
The flexibility provided by FORTRESS’s modular design enables a wide range of floor plans and building sizes to be created, ranging from 100 square feet to over 15,000 square feet. Combined with its best-in-class protective capabilities, this makes FORTRESS the ideal solution for a variety of purposes, including industrial buildings, edge data centers, battery storage facilities, mission-critical buildings, and even structures for military applications.
FORTRESS is the first total precast modular protective building of its kind. While other modular precast structures have been created in the past, none have offered the levels of blast, fire, fragment, and toxic resistance that FORTRESS consistently delivers. Tindall supported FORTRESS from the early conversations about a precast blast-resistant modular structure through its first installation in the Gulf Coast. Today, Tindall continues to partner with FORTRESS as the sole provider of precast modules.
“Working with Tindall management, engineers, and production staff, from conceptual drawings on paper to the finished product at the job site was seamless. The Tindall team truly work with a collaborative partnership mindset to deliver the best product possible to their customers.”
