TM-5-855-4
CHAPTER 6
DECONTAMINATION FACILITIES
6-1.
General.
.
a. Decontamination facilities are required for the safe entry of personnel into a hardened structure
from a contaminated area. Decontamination facilities will be provided in communications and control
centers, command posts, or other hardened structures in which a mission must be accomplished
throughout an enemy attack or where the prolonged operations of such facilities are dependent upon the
availability of outside utilities.
b. Decontamination facilities may be omitted or reduced to a minimum size in hardened structures
that are primarily shelters in which no specific mission is accomplished and no need exists for the
movement of personnel between the outside and inside of the structure during a contaminating event.
c. Decontamination facilities covered in this manual are limited to the corridor type suitable to
process those few people who may be required to make outside surveys or repairs. The required
decontamination capacity will be determined by the facility system engineering.
d. In structures where uninterrupted operations must be maintained and personnel are placed on a
shift basis for "around-the-clock" duty, provisions will be made for the emergency housing and messing
of all required personnel within that structure. This eliminates the need for large decontamination
facilities and the requirement for additional protected structures for housing and messing. It also
simplifies the problem of transporting personnel through the contaminated areas between various
buildings.
e. In the exceptional case when a large number of people must be transported through or from
contaminated areas to hardened installations, collapsible self-storing decontamination facilities
designed by CRDC to process up to 320 persons per hour may be obtained from AMCCOM.
6-2.
Entrances.
a. Entrances that do not incorporate decontamination. facilities (covered in TM 5-858-5) are provided
with an airtight door behind a pair of blastproof exterior doors resulting in two contiguous chambers; a
blast lock and a vestibule.
(1) The blast lock between the blast doors allows opening of one blast door at a time. This permits
ingress and egress without loss of interior air pressure, interruption of the blast protection, or direct entry
of air into the facility.
(2) Mounted above the exterior blast door is a blast closure and above the inner blast door an
antibackdraft valve. These fittings are connected in series by a blast proof ceiling cavity above the blast
lock. This allows continuous exhaust of air from the vestibule under a controlled pressure differential
independently from the use of the blast lock.
(3) The vestibule between the blast door and the airtight door is a pressurized and ventilated air
lock which allows for dilution and exhaust of any outside air introduced in the vestibule by the movement
of personnel through the inner blast door.
(4) Mounted above the airtight door separating the vestibule from the rest of the facility is an air
pressure regulator to supply no less than 300 cfm of scavenging air to the vestibule under a controlled
pressure differential.
b. The addition of decontamination facilities accessible from the vestibule of such entrances, as
shown" in figure 6-1, will extend their use to contaminating events. Scavenging air is supplied through
the permeable shower doors. As a result the air pressure regulator above the airtight door to the vestibule
is eliminated. During contaminating events the vestibule will become contaminated as soon as entries
are made, but further contamination of the installation is prevented if the contaminated personnel are
diverted through the decontamination facility instead of proceeding through the airtight door used under
normal conditions. This will eliminate the everyday use of the decontamination facilities and the
requirement of a dedicated entrance.
6-1
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