Aerospace Campus Improvements

An aerospace company partnered with JP Cullen to construct their campus improvements consisting of renovating existing rocket engine test cells, constructing multiple new rocket engine test cells, and constructing the associated necessary infrastructure consisting of a Control Room, Pump House, and Workshop. JP Cullen self-performed approximately two-thirds of our overall contract scope including concrete, masonry, structural steel, and carpentry.

Some unique aspects of this project included constructing a steel thrust takeout structure for a vertical rocket engine test position that fires into an underground sound suppression system. The thrust takeout structure was designed to accommodate more than 100,000 lbs. of force and it necessitated very small deflection tolerances for allowing the force measurement system to work accurately. The underground sound suppression system included a radiused concrete chute that was designed to an incredible degree of accuracy that required the formwork to be custom CNC-machined and numerous different sequenced concrete pours.

The Pump House construction necessitated an expansive earth retention system being put in place with a continuous dewatering operation to accommodate the over-excavation necessary directly adjacent a body of water to deal with the unsuitable soils encountered, but despite these challenges, combined with having to construction the Pump House over the Winter, the Pump House was successfully completed. The Control Room allows for the safe operation of numerous different rocket engine test cells located in different buildings on the campus from a remote location.