Starting in April of 2018, Portland Bolt began manufacturing the large galvanized F1554 Grade 55 anchor rods for the Long Range Discrimination Radar Equipment Shelter or LES. The LES houses the Long Range Discrimination Radar (LRDR) that is designed to detect aircraft and intercontinental missiles that would be headed toward the United States. This radar installation is one in a series of other large radar installations surrounding North America that detect flying objects from all directions that potentially may be travelling into North American air space. Standard radar uses one wave to create a one dimensional display showing objects, but the LRDR is unique by essentially using two waves of radar to create a much more detailed, multi-dimensional display.
The bulk of the order included nearly 500 pieces of 2-3/4” diameter and over 100 pieces of 2-1/4” diameter F1554 Grade 55 anchor bolts that were over 6 feet long with tack welded nuts on the embedded end of the threaded rods. Portland Bolt was responsible to manufacture the anchor bolts, tack weld nuts, and hot-dip galvanize all anchor bolts in our own hot-dip galvanized facility. Being a federally funded military project, all materials had to be 100% domestic with full supporting mill test reports and documents. The entire amount of the material Portland Bolt manufactured for the project totaled nearly 40 pallets of threaded rod, nuts, washers, and plastic anchor sleeves and had a total weight of over 83,000 lbs.