750000.00

The MOD is at risk from terrorist and other adversarial organizations. Counter Terrorist Measures (CTM) are part of the way the department discharges its ‘Duty of Care’ to its employees under the Health & Safety at Work Act. The MOD has an enduring requirement to provide ‘reasonable and practicable’ (HSW definition) levels of protection to building occupants in the context of CTM. Over the last two decades, the construction industry has continuously strived to reduce both build times and cost. This has primarily been driven by commercial considerations and has resulted in construction becoming progressively ‘lighter’ in terms of its strength and mass (weight) and this has negatively impacted on the MOD’s ability to provide ‘reasonable & practicable’ levels of protection to building occupants in the context of CTM. In support of this, DIO intends to conduct a series of blast trials related to explosive ordnance disposal (EOD). These blast activities will explore the impact of emerging trends in construction such as modern methods of construction, ‘modular’ construction, and Steel Framing Solutions (SFS) cladding systems. The blast trials will provide the DIO with an understanding the effects explosives and improvised explosive devices can have on buildings or their components when placed within them or in close proximity. These blast activities have the common characteristics of being sensitive in nature, potentially hazardous if not carefully planned and executed, in most cases unprecedented and large in scale, involve significant quantities of explosives and require a suite of specialized and sophisticated instrumentation to measure the effects. The output of the blast trials will be used by the DIO to update the CTM Policy to be aligned with modern methods of construction in terms of the use of ‘modular’ construction and SFS cladding systems.