Multi-site Radar Grounding

Brice Builders is performing the design and construction updates to the grounding, surge, and lightning protection systems (LPS) at 11 Alaskan Radar Sites to bring them in line with current design and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards. The current LPS will be upgraded with new down leads and tied into the new grounding system. Accomplishing this will safeguard equipment and personnel against a lightning strike or electrical surge which could result in injuries, fatalities, significant equipment replacement costs and high impact to the ARS mission.

Our scope of work includes survey of existing conditions, 95% design, construction, as built drawings, and the preparation of an operations and maintenance manual and related training.  With all the field work being at remote locations, Brice personnel will be using chartered Hercules flights and other passenger aircraft frequently over the Fall of 2020 and the Spring and Summer of 2021.

Brice will construct new grounding system components prior to the demolition of the existing grounding and bonding system components, using a combination trenching equipment, drilling equipment and manual digging. Grounding and bonding conductors will be installed using conduit, j-hooks or installed in existing cable tray as required. Below grade connection will be completed using exothermic welds, above grade connections will be a combination of exothermic welds, irreversible compression connectors and mechanical connectors. Upon completion, Brice will test the grounding system using the fall of potential method to confirm that the desired resistance benchmarks have been met.

Brice scheduled the field work to begin at Murphy Dome which is accessible by road, and King Salmon which is accessible by commercial plane. Following construction completion at these two sites, we will address the sites located in western Alaska and move north to the North Slope.

Brice is coordinating any required utility outages with the O&M Contractor to minimize disruption to radar site operations, as well as USACE and their other onsite contractors to avoid scheduling conflicts or site access issues.