Protection from blast is a critical consideration for facilites requiring enhanced levels of safety and/or security. MKA’s blast protection expertise includes designing new facilities to enhanced standards of safety and security as well as assessing and retrofitting existing facilities to mitigate potential blast impacts.

Our Blast Technical Specialist Team is led by the co-author of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA’s) latest blast protection guidelines for airport facilities.  By integrating blast-resistant qualities into the structural, seismic, and aesthetic needs of a facility, MKA minimizes the impact to the architectural aesthetic and construction cost.  Our innovative approach to blast protection is award-winning and effective.  For example, the first-ever blast- and collapse-protection system we developed for Seattle’s 23-story United States Courthouse won a top national engineering award and is the U.S. General Services Administration’s preferred system for seismic zones.

Blast-performance technologies available at MKA include the following:

• Proprietary blast-resistant screens, ceilings, and glazed curtain walls that absorb blast energy using friction, viscous, or yielding damping devices.
• Innovative use of composite, concrete-filled pipe columns to resist blast and vehicular impact forces.
• Passive elements that serve double-duty as pedestrian and building amenities and stand-off barriers.
• First-ever hardened building cores consisting of steel plate shear walls or dual plate composite walls that offer excellent blast, fire, and ballistic protection as well as wind and seismic stability for mid- and high-rise buildings.