Navy’s new high-tech trainer to create

realistic sea battle experience

By Don Doherty

Would you buy a computer game that simulates modern naval warfare on the high seas, with life-size characters and torpedo explosions you can hear and feel? The United States Navy is building such a high-tech, one-of-a-kind simulator at its Great Lakes Naval Training Center in North Chicago, Ill. The $82.5 million Battle Stations 21, however, is no one’s toy.

Computers here will control much more than indoor comfort. They’ll also trigger special effects that simulate everything from an ocean breeze to full-scale combat. It all happens aboard the USS Trayer, a nearly full-size replica of a guided missile destroyer. During the exercise an explosion erupts, shaking the floor and emitting a frightening rumble from deep inside the ship. For many aboard, the trouble is only beginning. Screams for help from casualties will echo throughout the gangways as trainees struggle in the chaos to execute life-saving tasks. Some will assist the wounded while their buddies fight fires or make their escape from a smoke-filled or flooded compartment. Observers will look through portholes to follow what’s happening outside the ship — it all unfolds on synchronized videos — and report what they see to the ship’s command in the bridge.

Battle Stations 21 will be the culminating event for Naval recruits, a grueling 12-hour test of their skills that marks the final rite of passage. Passing the test, recruits will earn the title of Sailor, according to a project fact sheet. The simulator derives its name from the number of situations they’ll encounter while aboard the Trayer. Great Lakes, the Navy’s only basic training center, currently holds these exercises in five different buildings using low-tech simulations.

The make-believe journey begins and ends at seaside locations many recruits will encounter later on. When the crew of 352 passes through the entrance of Battle Stations 21 they will be dockside at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia. Manufactured sights, sounds and smells will recreate a realistic oceanside setting. Along one wall the mock missile cruiser is docked adjacent to the pier. After a brief orientation, trainees will head up the gangplank and over about 10 feet of ocean water between the dock and vessel. At the end of the exercise, the same dock will be transformed to look like the Naval Weapons Station at Yorktown, Va. The “voyage” will be over.

The Trayer’s three decks copy a cruiser’s look right down to the gritty, epoxy-coated walls and floors. Everything from bollards to gangway hatches were salvaged from decommissioned vessels and given new life here. Underneath the façade, however, the Trayer is just another steel-framed building, except for the floors, which are slightly tilted to mimic the ship’s list.

Design-build effort

Constructing Battle Stations 21 has also challenged members of the diverse design-build team assembled for the project. Besides architects, engineers, contractors and construction managers, the team includes seven special effects firms and two entities within the Navy as overseers. Of course, this calls for lots of communication, coordination and patience.

Key design personnel visited the Navy’s shipyard in San Diego early in the project to see firsthand how real warships are built and operate. One of them was Joe Levin, commercial division manager for Heatmasters, Inc. The Chicago design-build mechanical contractor was hired to design and install HVAC and process piping for Battle Stations 21. Levin, a registered mechanical engineer, had already submitted some piping sketches before his San Diego trip. The opportunity to board a real vessel helped him refine his ideas. “I had to go out to see how the air was distributed, see how the piping is run on a real destroyer,” Levin said. While the piping systems aboard ship are essentially alike, there may be big differences in how they are laid out. In most buildings, “we run parallel to the column lines, as a rule,” he added. “On the ship, everything is crisscrossed.”

Each of the simulator’s three floors has a mechanical room. The largest is on the lower deck. The chilled water and hot water plants are here. On the hot side, Heatmasters installed an underground line to tap into the base’s main steam line. The high-pressure/low-pressure steam system has numerous variable air volume (VAV) air distribution systems. Heat exchangers on the lower level convert the steam transferring heat to a loop that supplies air handlers located on the above decks. Steam also feeds the building’s domestic water heaters.

Heatmasters also piped process liquid systems. One handles the simulator’s “ocean,” a pool some 200-feet long by 10 feet wide and 5 feet deep, between the pier and port side of the ship. A wave machine submerged in the pool, one of the special effects, uses compressed air to drive a big paddle, giving an ocean-like roll to the 90,000 gallons of water in the tank. Some of the water will be drawn from the “ocean” to supply firefighting equipment during training. Everything is eventually recycled back into the system. A filtration room, which services the pool, is adjacent to the dock area and mechanical room. A process system was also piped to furnish glycol used to create fog, another special effect. Heatmasters also installed a compressed air distribution loop with varied pressure-reducing capabilities. Each special effect unit has its own required pressure, Levin said. Their contract also called for them to install Battle Stations’ custom-built flame simulator and gas supply line.

“This has been a highly coordinated job,” explained Ken Mangold, Heatmasters’ general superintendent at Great Lakes. Battle Stations 21 will be a first of its kind in training simulators, and the design-build method chosen has challenged everyone to balance creativity and efficiency, and make them perform together. The Navy’s request for proposals (RFP), as paraphrased in the fact sheet, called for “balancing a convincing simulation with constructability, safety and cost; finding a safe, logical way for more than 350 people, many in a high-stress situation, to move through the building safely; and designing the building’s infrastructure…to handle complex, unusual special effects.” The team would work under stringent post-9/11 security restrictions and “within a rigorous schedule even while design progresses.”

The RFP didn’t include a floor plan. All this would be the responsibility of the contractor-led design-build team. The team leader is James McHugh Construction Co., a Chicago general contractor. Responsibility for mechanical design belongs to SmithGroup, Inc., of Detroit, which integrated the special effects needs and systems into the drawings.

Heatmasters’ pipe fitter foreman, John Brown, who has been on the job nearly a year, understood early on that this job would be different. “I’ve done high rises, I’ve done hospitals; you name it, I’ve done it. You forget it all when you come here,” he said. By itself, the HVAC equipment was nothing unusual, but the intermingled special effects were a new experience, Brown explained. The transition from design to construction could be counted on to demand lots of care and coordination.

“It’s quite an intense effort to make sure everything goes in when and where it is needed,” Mangold said. “All contractors are working very well together to make this thing come together,” he added.

A vast, hangar-like structure across the street from the simulator, once used as an indoor drill area, has provided space for storage and fabrication of components. In fact, Brown and his crew have used the building to fabricate much the of the mechanical room between schedule openings.

With nearly all of the mechanical systems built, the commissioning process has begun. “We will go through a period of running all the equipment, and once that’s done there will be a commissioning of the entire project, making sure everything including special effects works,” Mangold said.

Construction began in October 2005. When it is completed in February 2007, Battle Stations 21 will become one of the base’s “signature” landmarks. It will be a first and the only one of its kind in all the military branches.

“It’s a good feeling to know you’re involved with something that is for the overall good of our country. And I believe all our pipe fitters are taking great pride in their work on Battle Stations 21, knowing they are doing something special,” Mangold said.

Other facts and figures*

Size:

At 157,000 square feet, Battle Stations 21 will be one of the base’s largest structures. It will rise to a height of 40 feet and will extend 14 feet below grade. The Battle Stations building also will house the Navy’s Recruit Training Command headquarters and the Recruit Division Commander’s School, in a 55,700-square-foot portion of the structure.

Building Description:

The Battle Stations building, a reinforced concrete structure, will show two faces. Its north elevation will provide a traditional red brick exterior, reflecting the style of the base’s historic Georgian structures. Its southern exterior, where recruits will enter “Pier 8” to begin their training experience, will feature a descent along a walkway to a below-grade entrance, providing the feeling of being away from the base, down to the sounds of shipyard activity that will be broadcast.

The USS Trayer:

Battle Stations 21 will far exceed basic simulation: the building will house a 210-foot-long replica of a guided missile destroyer, floating in a moat with the scent of seawater wafting through the air. It will test recruits’ problem-solving, communications and other essential skills. Four divisions of 88 recruits — 352 total, along with their facilitators — will be able to move through the facility at once. Facilitators will use wireless handheld computers to control the action, monitor recruits and communicate with the operations team behind the scenes.

Special Effects

Through set design, props, lighting, and a variety of special effects, including piped-in aromas, recruits will experience horrifying realism, from mass casualties to a burning ship. Among the touches: with built-in MP3 players triggered by infrared technology, “injured” dummies will scream, moan or make faint breathing sounds. Flames will jet from the firefighting areas. Floors will shake to mimic the ship’s movement in the berthing area. It will use the best in 21st century technology to educate recruits who grew up in the multimedia age.

Design/Build Program:

Battle Stations 21 is being built according to a federal two-step design/build process. The contractor serves as leader of a project team and is the sole source of responsibility for the building, which is constructed for a set price. Architects, owners, engineers and consultants become co-workers, rather than separate entities and occasional adversaries. By gathering early, accurate cost information, the team is able to begin construction while still in the midst of designing the structure. This speeds construction and allows for rapid response to potential glitches.

About Great Lakes

Great Lakes is home to 26,000 people and provides basic training to some 42,000 recruits a year. Thirty miles north of Chicago and adjacent to Lake Michigan, it has more than 1,150 buildings on 1,628 acres. Founded in 1911, Great Lakes is in the midst of a 10-year, nearly $800 million revitalization and expansion program.

* From fact sheet “Battle Stations 21, Naval Station Great Lakes/U.S. Navy,” prepared by James McHugh Construction Co.

About Heatmasters, Inc.

Heatmasters, Inc. opened its doors in 1950, focusing entirely on residential work. Five years later the company tested the waters in the commercial market, working on large boilers and burners, and never looked back. More than 50 years later, strategic thinking and key acquisitions have enabled Heatmasters to grow into a diverse mechanical contractor with success in several endeavors. Today it is a design-build contractor with two professional engineers on staff. On the residential side, it continues to focus on replacement work, and has become the area’s largest Weil-McLain replacement market dealer. Heatmasters also has a commercial service division. More recently, the company has added a separate division that specializes in plastic injection molding machine cooling systems, along with the plastic pellet delivery systems. Heatmasters, Inc., located in northwest Chicago, Ill., is headed by Larry Fisher, president.