Explosives Defence Trial

This project involved the construction of 4 residual buildings, 3 Singaporean structures and 2 commercial building sites with a total of 6 commercial buildings, 1 Norwegian house complete with refrigerator, wineglasses, double glazed windows and a Baltic Pine staircase. The project also involved several field structures including command and control structures, an element of a field hospital, modular / tented accommodation and observation towers. 5200 tonnes of concrete, 7500 tonnes of soil and 45km of fibre optics and data cables were used in the construction.

The site of the explosion was covered extensively with multiple sensors and cameras to measure the blast's pressure. Thirty cameras in protective housings recorded the explosion.

The United Kingdom's Ordnance Safety Group and the Department of Defence Ordnance Safety Group sponsored the trial. It was conducted under a Memorandum of Understanding for defence research between the United Kingdom Ministry for Defence, the Australian Department of Defence, the Netherlands, Norway and Singapore.

The purpose of the trial was to obtain data from which safety criteria for explosive storage and handling could be determined and modelled, including whether NATO mandated 'buffer zones' around stored explosives should be adjusted.

The project was carried out on time and without incident. McMahon Services was praised for their efforts by all centres involved. The Minister for Defence, Senator Robert Hill, gave the 'all clear' on site via a hand held radio to personnel positioned underground 800 metres from the blast site.

27 Tonne Trial

In early 2002 McMahon Services commenced the building of structures to be used to test the results of a 27 tonne explosion and how it impacted on various buildings. The British Defence financed this and Singapore, Holland and Norway all participated in the trial. 

The British designed the concrete structure to house 27 tonnes of explosion shells, also designed for commercial buildings, which consisted of a steel frame and a brick and metal clad section of a composite building. The Singaporeans also provided their requirement for materials to be tested, including glass windows for various types of building wall panels. The Norwegians had a small house built from a previous trial which was to be included again.

Extensive fibre optic cables were installed from the buildings to the computers to record all the information. Additionally the Dutch provided field equipment used by the Army to be tested with a 5 tonne explosion.

This trial consisted of the bombs being placed in a sea container surrounded by Hesco sand barricades to protect the equipment. Various forms of scaffold structures, Hesco barriers and field type transportables were tested with the 5 tonne explosion. Around each Ground Zero a series of pegs were located at a 10-degree radius to form a spider web effect around each Ground Zero. At the completion of each explosion the debris was collected out to a radius of 1200 metres and was identified, sorted and weighed for analysis. The results of the test were shared to all countries that participated.