Prime Base structure

[tsofian]

I've been looking deeper into the tower structures in Prime Base. These are the same shape as cooling towers:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooling_tower https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperboloid_structure

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow_Island_disaster
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoyimyyekB8

This all seems to indicate that this type of structure is particularly poorly suited for the needs of Prime Base.

First they are difficult to construct and require specialist engineering and labor as well as equipment. This means they would be expensive to build and need a lot of specialist to

From what I can determine these structures would respond poorly to asymmetrical stresses on the floors, as the floors would be connected to the cylinder walls which would bear the load. I can't find a structure of this type that is loaded with intermediate floors. It seems this type if structure is capable of bearing a load on the top that pushed downwards but not the type of load that would be generated by load bearing floors, such as proposed in the canon design.

The use of giant towers also requires a giant space. This is even more true since all three are in the same cavern. I don't recall the exact size of the cavern but it must be around the size of a football stadium to hold all three cylinders. Such a huge space presents all sorts of issues in construction, debris removal, security, safety after construction and probably other things as well. By getting away from the vertical towers this makes a lot of other options available.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by tsofian

The use of giant towers also requires a giant space. This is even more true since all three are in the same cavern. I don't recall the exact size of the cavern but it must be around the size of a football stadium to hold all three cylinders. Such a huge space presents all sorts of issues in construction, debris removal, security, safety after construction and probably other things as well. By getting away from the vertical towers this makes a lot of other options available.

cavern? There just excavated out of the ridge under the guise of a failed mining project. There isn't a cavern. The only cave is the goofy tunnel for the helo that is a total fail in thought and execution.

[dragoon500ly]

It all boils down to the three tower setup simply is not feasible.

Okay, now what do we do?

We have an entire ridge to play with!

Enter Morrow Mining, a subsidiary of Morrow Industries Incorporated. MM has secured options to conduct preliminary survey work in Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Colorado with the intent of searching for deposits of copper, nickel, lead, silver, gold and uranium in the four state region.

In Nevada, the ridge north of White Rock Canyon is identified as a prime site for a copper mine, showcasing Morrow Mining`s concern for the environment, the decision is made to sink several shafts into the ridge instead of a more traditional pit mine.

For a twenty year period, the Soldier Meadow Mine has turned a steady profit for MM until the veins ran out in 1978. Following the removal of the last of the copper ore, the mine shafts were cleared of all equipment and filled in with crushed rock with exterior be carefully landscaped back to its original appearance.

[dragoon500ly]

With the cover story of the Soldier Meadow Mine, the Project set about the construction of Prime Base.

The mine itself was buried at the northeastern point of the ridge (were the Mission Complex is placed on the Prime base Module map). There is no direct connection between the mine and Prime Base (they are separated by over 500 feet of untouched rock).

Prime base consists of three three-mile long tunnels, placed one above the over (separated by 50 feet of rock/reinforced concrete) with the upper tunnel some 200 feet below the surface of the ridge. These tunnels have short tunnels running to the left and right of the main tunnel, leading to rectangular "warehouses".

Tunnel One (uppermost) is the munitions tunnel with the northern end dedicated to munitions and the southern end to bulk weapons storage. There are two small tunnels running towards the surface. The first leads to a Weather Exposure Module and the second to a Electronics Exposure Module.

The Weather EM is hidden underneath blast doors on the top of the 5,138 foot peak. Once activated, a variety of monitoring equipment can be raised and lowered as necessary.

The Electronics EM is located under a second set of blast doors on the top of the 5,177 foot peak. Located here is an aerial search radar, and several antennas for monitoring AM/FM bands as well as satellite dishes.

Tunnel Two (middle) is bulk equipment and vehicle storage.

Tunnel Three (lower) is bulk material storage for the workshops of Prime Base.

At the southern end of the ridge (the original Prime Base location) are eight tunnels, each running some 800 yards in length and some 300 yards in width with 20 foot ceilings. and stacked one above the other.

Tunnel A and B house Operations, here are the personnel & accounting offices; mission and branch operations offices; communications, administration, the technical library and briefing rooms.

Tunnels C, D, and E house the personnel quarters, civic center, library, recreation and exercise areas and the base school.

Tunnel F houses the base hospital and medical supply storage areas.

Tunnel G and H house the research laboratories, base arsenal, laundry, and the power, sewage, fresh water supply and air circulation equipment.

Leading from Tunnels G and H is another tunnel running along the "spine" of the base for about a mile. This is the Workshop Tunnel, here are the Base Farms, the distillation and brewing shop, the biology lab, the chemical research lab, and the physics research lab, all located at intervals on the northern side of the tunnel.

Along the southern side of the tunnel are the admin office, woodworking shop, three machine shops, two forge rooms, the mechanical engineering and maintenance shop and the print shop. At the far end of the tunnel is the archives storage rooms, a series of six, heavily secured rooms.

You will note that there are no aviation facilities within the base, to the south of the ridge is a fairly level plateau that is dedicated to an air strip. dug into the ridge are a series of boltholes that contain four Lockheed C-130 Hercules, four Boeing CH-47 Chinooks, eight UH-1N helicopters and four OV-10D Broncos.

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by dragoon500ly

With the cover story of the Soldier Meadow Mine, the Project set about the construction of Prime Base.

The mine itself was buried at the northeastern point of the ridge (were the Mission Complex is placed on the Prime base Module map). There is no direct connection between the mine and Prime Base (they are separated by over 500 feet of untouched rock).

Prime base consists of three three-mile long tunnels, placed one above the over (separated by 50 feet of rock/reinforced concrete) with the upper tunnel some 200 feet below the surface of the ridge. These tunnels have short tunnels running to the left and right of the main tunnel, leading to rectangular "warehouses".

Tunnel One (uppermost) is the munitions tunnel with the northern end dedicated to munitions and the southern end to bulk weapons storage. There are two small tunnels running towards the surface. The first leads to a Weather Exposure Module and the second to a Electronics Exposure Module.

The Weather EM is hidden underneath blast doors on the top of the 5,138 foot peak. Once activated, a variety of monitoring equipment can be raised and lowered as necessary.

The Electronics EM is located under a second set of blast doors on the top of the 5,177 foot peak. Located here is an aerial search radar, and several antennas for monitoring AM/FM bands as well as satellite dishes.

Tunnel Two (middle) is bulk equipment and vehicle storage.

Tunnel Three (lower) is bulk material storage for the workshops of Prime Base.

At the southern end of the ridge (the original Prime Base location) are eight tunnels, each running some 800 yards in length and some 300 yards in width with 20 foot ceilings. and stacked one above the other.

200 feet deep isn't really that deep, so I would definitely go deeper. I'd say anything less than 1000 feet isn't deep enough.

How much munitions are you needing a three mile tunnel seems to be able to hold a lot more than you need.

I'm wrestling with your housing scheme, but am not sure what would work or would not work. This is one where there are a lot of ways to do this. I think the original idea of the towers had a very positive psychological impact on the residents. I'm pretty sure the easiest way to go would be "trailers in tunnels" but I really think that would be a terrible way to live. I do think the "cooling tower" shape is all wrong, but that the "high rise" idea might not be terrible, depending upon how they are built.

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by tsofian

200 feet deep isn't really that deep, so I would definitely go deeper. I'd say anything less than 1000 feet isn't deep enough.

How much munitions are you needing a three mile tunnel seems to be able to hold a lot more than you need.

I'm wrestling with your housing scheme, but am not sure what would work or would not work. This is one where there are a lot of ways to do this. I think the original idea of the towers had a very positive psychological impact on the residents. I'm pretty sure the easiest way to go would be "trailers in tunnels" but I really think that would be a terrible way to live. I do think the "cooling tower" shape is all wrong, but that the "high rise" idea might not be terrible, depending upon how they are built.

1000' is kind of overkill. If we assume you are at least a good KM outside of the fireball, 50' is probably enough to keep everyone safe. 200' is a nice safety margin.

I did a quick model of one of the 3 mile long tunnels and came with with about 17 acres of warehouse space with 20m of rock separating each one and placing HVAC and fire suppression stations distributed along the length at about 1 mile each to support the in warehouse units. Make it three and we have a lot of hardware in those tunnels.

I didn't look at the habitat closely yet, so I will reserve comments on that part.

[dragoon500ly]

Originally Posted by tsofian

200 feet deep isn't really that deep, so I would definitely go deeper. I'd say anything less than 1000 feet isn't deep enough.

How much munitions are you needing a three mile tunnel seems to be able to hold a lot more than you need.

I'm wrestling with your housing scheme, but am not sure what would work or would not work. This is one where there are a lot of ways to do this. I think the original idea of the towers had a very positive psychological impact on the residents. I'm pretty sure the easiest way to go would be "trailers in tunnels" but I really think that would be a terrible way to live. I do think the "cooling tower" shape is all wrong, but that the "high rise" idea might not be terrible, depending upon how they are built.

It is my understanding that the depth of a "bomb-proof" depends a great deal upon the density of the rock. I've been going through USGS surveys of the area and based on the research so far, I'd have to say that the upper tunnel would need to be between 400-500 feet below surface. I would even go so far as to state that the tunnels have been built with reinforced-concrete (3-6 feet thickness).

As for Tunnel One and its munitions storage; my thoughts on this are to separate the ammo igloos by about 50 feet (from the main tunnel) and secured behind multiple blast doors. The actual igloo is a reinforced-concrete domed structure about 100 feet in diameter. Each igloo is dedicated to one type of ammo. As an additional precaution against accidental detonation, the igloos would be staggered left and right of the main tunnel. This would be the first 1.5 miles of the tunnel. Blocking this portion of the tunnel would be another set of blast doors.

The second part of Tunnel One is the weapons storage. This would be a series of 100 foot square warehouses for bulk storage of replacement and special weapons.

As far as the personnel quarters go , this is still underdevelopment, but I am leaning more and more towards domed shaped, 1-2 story structures, still researching the strength of the domed structures, especially being that deep!

[tsofian]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

cavern? There just excavated out of the ridge under the guise of a failed mining project. There isn't a cavern. The only cave is the goofy tunnel for the helo that is a total fail in thought and execution.

A cavern does not have to be a natural formation

cav·ern
ˈkavərn/Submit
noun
plural noun: caverns
a cave, or a chamber in a cave, typically a large one.
synonyms: large cave, grotto, underground chamber/gallery, vault
"the crude stone steps led down to a dank and cold cavern"
used in similes and comparisons to refer to a vast, dark space.
"the dark cavern of the main performance hall"