EXPLOSIVES DEMOLITION | EMAD & TCC Water Towers

Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, Maryland, USA (acting as Explosives Subcontractor to Main Demolition Contractor, Clauss Construction of Lakeside, California) performs the engineering design, physical preparation for and successful explosives felling of the 120’ tall EMAD and TCC, structural steel water towers supported by four (4) cylindrical steel legs. The Engine Maintenance, Assembly, and Disassembly (EMAD) and Test Cell C (TCC) facilities were located at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) in Mercury, Nevada.

CDI designed an engineered implosion plan to prepare and safely fell the structures to grade where the post felling debris could be reached with Clauss’s conventional demolition equipment for downsizing and debris removal. Lead based paint was identified and removed at torch modification cut points, per CDI’s plan, prior to CDI’s pre-burning, to prepare those cut points for placement of linear shaped charges (LSCs). CDI positioned LSCs on two (2) of the four (4) support legs on each water tower to create an eccentric load and modified the rear legs to act as hinges about which CDI rotated each tower in its designated direction of fall.

The EMAD and TCC Water Towers were successfully felled, exactly per plan, on January 11, 2024. The EMAD Water Tower was felled within 5° of the designed centerline of fall to the northeast and the TCC Water Tower was felled within 3° of the designed centerline of fall to the west. There was no projection of debris from the towers to the rear or either side of the designed fall path and there was no separation of tank debris beyond the height of the structure in the direction of fall for each tank.