Military shelters Royal Australian Air Force
Challenge
The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), the air force of the Australian armed forces, issued a tender for military shelters which are easy to move for military aircraft maintenance and logistics operations. It had to be possible to easily and quickly assemble and disassemble them, and they had to be functional in extreme weather conditions. The longest component could not be longer than 230 cm in order to allow transportation in 8 feet (= 244 cm) containers. The military shelters had to meet the Australian standards for wind speed and snow loads.
Solution
Veldeman won the tender and developed the DAMALSH (Deployable Aircraft Maintenance and Logistics Shelter), fully customized for the RAAF. This prefabricated military shelter has a design with mainly pin-connections and can easily be built up from ground level with manpower only. A forklift, cherry picker or other site equipment are not required when installing the military shelters. For ease of installation, customized special assembly tools were also developed. Two types of DAMALSH were developed: with a flat gable or with a ‘big mouth’ gate. In the meantime about 15 DAMALSH shelters are used by the RAAF. The shelters have been successfully deployed overseas for military exercises and air shows in Australia.
