NAUE Receives Honor from Emergency Training Center

AUGUST 2010 – The expansive Smokey Hill Air National Guard Range near Salina, Kansas provides 34,000 acres for an emergency training center for active and reserve military organizations. This unique, realistic environment facility includes a 156-acre zone for crisis response training. For the construction of a collapsed structure simulation, site coordinators sought a subgrade reinforcement material that would not require the addition of a separate nonwoven weed barrier. The Kansas Department of Transportation suggested Combigrid® GRK 5 2020, a material with which KDOT has previous experience.
NAUE Combigrid® geogrids combine the excellent stress/strain characteristics of Secugrid® geogrids with the three-dimensional, high-elongation, nonwoven fiber matrix of Secutex® geotextiles in single layer product for reinforcement and control of fines in weak subsoils, such as those with a CBR of less than 3%.
For the Guard’s emergency training center, Combigrid® provided support to the simulated structure collapse, a pile that included significant amounts of heavy concrete blocks, pipes, and debris such as crushed and trapped vehicles. NAUE shipped the material from its Buena Vista, Virginia facility in February 2010 and the Kansas Guard began work on the installation and pile building.
Sgt. Greg Kober of the Army National Guard, Kansas said that they found Combigrid® “to be a great product that was easily installed by hand.” The geogrid was covered by 6 in. of AB-3 rock base (typical in KDOT road designs), and on 13 July 2010 the combined training exercise was carried out successfully.
In conjunction with this, Michelle Jenkins accepted on behalf of NAUE a Certificate of Appreciation along with a military coin from Brigadier General Norman Steen, along with Angie Morgan and Frank Coots of the Kansas Emergency Management Team. It is a military custom to give tokens of thanks, and a coin is regarded as a gift of honor showing respect and gratitude.
For more information about Combigrid® and other NAUE products and applications, visit http://www.naue.com/.