Location: San Diego, CA

City Training Facility

When the City of San Diego needed to design and build an outdoor employee training facility, they chose Bedford’s fiberglass-reinforced polymer (FRP) for the job. The lightweight, corrosion-resistant material was the perfect solution for the coastal Southern California area.

Challenge

The City of San Diego wanted to create a hands-on training facility for its employees to simulate entry into confined spaces such as enclosed tanks, pipelines and more. As part of this facility, the City needed a firm to design and build one 8-ft. platform and one 15-ft. platform.

Since the training facility is outdoors, the City wanted each platform to have a roof for training in inclement weather. The City also required the platforms to be non-conductive and resistant to the corrosive salt air/saltwater environment.

In addition, the platforms needed to be rated for 150 pounds per square foot to account for multiple personnel laden with breathing equipment and other tools. Plus, the deck needed to have a non-skid surface that would not allow small hand tools to drop through openings and fall to the ground below. Each deck also needed to allow for a center cutout where the city could position a tank or pipe opening for students to enter during training.

Solution

Based on the project requirements, Bedford’s FRP structural products were the ideal choice for construction. Distributor Peabody Engineering in Corona, California, designed and fabricated the structures using Bedford PROForms® structural profiles to handle seismic and wind load requirements.

Each structure was entirely assembled in Peabody’s Corona facility. Once complete, the roof, mounting components, OSHA-compliant handrails and stairs were removed for shipping, and the platforms were loaded on three specially permitted trucks for shipping to San Diego’s Water Department Service Facility. Both platforms were installed in just a few hours and the customer loved the result, getting everything they asked for in their design parameters.

The city of San Diego was not the only project we worked on that needed a corrosion resistant solution. Read about how our products helped Discovery Place Science avoid rust and mildew.