FASTC 25m/100m Ranges

The Foreign Affairs Security Training Facility (FASTC)– Blackstone, VA

The Foreign Affairs Security Training Center (FASTC) in Blackstone, Virginia provides lifesaving security training to Department of State personnel and members of the foreign affairs community, giving them the practical skills necessary to operate in today’s overseas environment.

One facility on the campus in Woods • Peacock’s scope is a 25m/100m firing range building that consists of three areas: a 100-meter-long range on the north end, a 25-meter-long firing range on the south end, and an administrative core area in-between. Combining the three functions into one building resulted in an efficient facility that meets the needs of the client.

The 100-meter range is a hybrid indoor/outdoor range with a sawtooth roof that contains 30 firing lanes. The 201-foot width of the range is clear-spanned by (10) 14-foot-deep steel roof trusses. Steel roof joists span between the top chord of one truss to the bottom chord of the adjacent truss, creating the sawtooth profile. The 25-meter range is divided into two shooting areas of 15 lanes each, divided by a concrete wall. This low-sloped roof was framed with steel joists and 100-foot wide, 8-foot-deep joist girders.

Providing a clear-span structure on this scale required extensive coordination and attention to detail. To accommodate a request by the fabricator, the connections were changed from welded to bolted connections, requiring precise coordination during construction to verify the bolted assembly fell within the acceptable limits of our design. Accounting for the thermal expansion and contraction of the long-span trusses, due to the large temperature fluctuations of the partially exposed structure, was accomplished via slide bearing connections at the supporting bearing walls. Most importantly, to ensure people inside and outside of the facility remained safe, high-hardness steel plating was hung from the roof framing, requiring lengthy coordination with the firing range consultant and the roof joist designer/fabricator.

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