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Safety Products

As a turnkey building solution, FORTRESS Protective Buildings, LLC (FORTRESS) is comprised of hazard resistant components which are also sold independently to meet your building site safety needs. With each building component fully tested by BakerRisk to FORTRESS’s high standard safety specifications, our products provide you with the peace of mind knowing you are protecting your personnel with the best available products.

Blast Resistant Door

Our Blast Resistant Doors are designed to provide protection not only for blast resistance, but also fire, smoke, and toxic impacts. Designed, engineered, and tested by BakerRisk, our blast resistant doors have shown to be fully operable after repetitive load tests at or beyond FORTRESS’s design pressure of 8-psi, >200psi.ms. The doors are fabricated by Deansteel Manufacturing, which is a highly regarded fabricator of independently tested and analyzed door and frame products to withstand a wide variety of ballistic and blast threats.  Even after 1 hour of direct fire impingement, the door was operable allowing for personnel egress once the fire event is contained

Extending beyond blast protection, our door products use a patent pending seal design to provide thermal and toxic protection. FORTRESS blast doors are guaranteed not to result in smoke or toxic offgas when tested for direct flame impingement of a ¼-inch propane jet fire for one hour.

Blast Resistant Window

FORTRESS has brought the expertise of the BakerRisk design and testing team together with the Crittall Window manufacturing experience to create a window product that is designed to provide protection from extreme fire conditions associated with jet fires as well as high pressure blast events. Full scale tested beyond FORTRESS’s design specification, the Crittall Windows HydrocarbonFire window from their BlastLine range of products was adapted by BakerRisk to meet the FORTRESS product line high hazard requirements.

40-minute direct impingement from ½-inch propane jet fire
Reflected blast load tested to 21psi at long impulse
Window external surface with thermocouples
Window external surface with thermocouples for testing temperature on the window surface during direct impingement.
Testing for direct impingement of saturated propane on the window specimen
Testing for direct impingement of saturated propane on the window specimen.
Window interior during testing
Window interior during testing – thermocouple arrangement for temperature monitoring.
Same window specimen tested four times – 6, 8, and 20 psi (x2).  The loads represent FORTRESS free-field and reflected design loads, and windows remained intact!
Same window specimen tested four times – 6, 8, and 20 psi (x2). The loads represent FORTRESS free-field and reflected design loads, and windows remained intact!
Window results

The presence of toxic gases is commonplace in process industries. To enhance the safety of personnel from toxic gases, buildings are often designed for personnel to take shelter in while the outside environment is brought under control by operators and/or to provide personnel time to safely don PPE and evacuate per emergency response plans. BakerRisk has developed a FORTRESS building 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).

However, if FORTRESS is not an option for your site, we design highly effective toxic shelters that reduce risk to occupants. BakerRisk SIP consultants have knowledge beyond design specification - they understand critical aspects of a highly effective SIP. A design may start with a blank page, or it may be a modification of an existing building. BakerRisk’s toxic shelter assessments quantify infiltration rates, calculate HVAC isolation reliability and timing, and characterize the reliability of a fallback plan.

Our SIP design consultants are experienced in:

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  • Toxic gas detection and HVAC system and exhaust fan isolation
  • Isolation of ventilation (dampers) and other major leak paths
  • Multi-barrier shelter designs
  • Barriers that are highly resistant to infiltration
  • Purge, scrubbing, filtering, and pressurization system designs
  • Highly effective fallback (evacuation) plans
We have extensive experience in testing and evaluating the effectiveness of SIPs. Our experts can:

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  • Characterize the timeliness and reliability of toxic gas detection and HVAC system and exhaust fan isolation
  • Quantify the infiltration rate into a building or into a room within a building by conducting tracer gas testing or blower door testing
  • Characterize the effectiveness of the fallback plan
  • Identify weaknesses / areas for improvement in an existing SIP and the fallback plan
  • Suggest changes to improve functionality of the SIP and safety of SIP occupants

FORTRESS Protective Buildings include an SIP control panel known as the "FORTRESS Gas Sentry" that was designed by BakerRisk and manufactured to interface with gas detectors outside and inside the building to initiate HVAC shutdown, damper closures, trending of gas concentrations, activation of fresh air flow and many other functions. The FORTRESS Gas Sentry includes expansion capabilities, a modern HMI aligned to the building layout, and its ability to record details will be an asset to protect your personnel from toxic gases.

Now, this FORTRESS SIP Control Panel can be purchased and designed specifically for your building layout and sheltering philosophy!

The effectiveness of an SIP depends on multiple factors including the leak tightness of the building, operating philosophy of the building, maintenance, and a robust monitoring program. It is important to monitor toxic concentrations not only within the shelter but also outside, at air intakes and at key locations within the building. Important decisions on the duration of sheltering and evacuation can be made based on monitoring gas concentration trends from strategically placed gas detectors. At the same time, it’s also important to maintain a safe environment for personnel to shelter. This can be easily achieved with assistance from a FORTRESS SIP control panel.

Click for more information on our FORTRESS Gas Sentry control box

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For more information on our SIP Control Panel, the FORTRESS Gas Sentry, or to request a quote, please contact us at FortressGasSentry@bakerrisk.com

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FORTRESS Gas Sentry control panel-IMG_4915

The FORTRESS team can work with you to customize the design of the panel, detectors, and the HMI to suit your needs. Our experience with most major manufacturers’ products, combined with BakerRisk’s research and expertise in gas detection for flammable and toxic gas detectors, can help clients not only with the SIP panel, but also selection and placement of detectors. FORTRESS will work with you closely from design to commissioning and can provide maintenance plans to support testing and maintenance of SIP panel and detectors.

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