Gulfstream Airport Hangar

Project Team

Structural Engineer: The Haskell Company
Owner: Gulfstream Aerospace
Architect: The Haskell Company
General Contractor: The Haskell Company
Steel Joist Manufacturer: New Millennium Building Systems
Steel Detailer: J.W. Hoy Company, Inc.
Steel Fabricator: Steel Erectors, Inc.
Steel Erector: Steel Erectors, Inc.

Project Type: Industrial

Project Description

Gulfstream: S.W.Q Hangar Phase II - Gulfstream began in the 1950’s when a company known for their military aircraft production wanted to produce a marketable business aircraft. Gulfstream has now developed over the decades, continually improving their fleet, and employing over 9,700 people at seven major locations. Our project began when Gulfstream wanted to expand their facility in Savannah, Georgia by adding 325,000 square feet of building space. The hangar along was 165,000 square feet, and was separated into two halves by a central core. This addition to Gulfstream’s existing facility will help advance the company and better service its large fleet of existing aircraft.

What Makes This Project Interesting

From a steel joist design perspective, this project was interesting as well as complex. New Millennium Building Systems (NMBS) was able to design massive girders through the two hangar bays that supported over 1,000 steel joists. Each girder was designed with an inverted double pitched top chord, 12 feet deep at the ends and over 10 feet deep in the center. Each girder weighed nearly 15 tons, and at 151 feet long, each was delivered in two pieces and reassembled with bolted splices in the field. The use of such large girders allowed Gulfstream to create a hangar space completely free from obstructions. The hangar was also composed of a large system of crane rails supported by steel joists. NMBS spent a great deal of effort in coordinating crane loads and locations with supplier R.J. Mack of Jacksonville, Florida. Steel joists were designed in a manner that crane rails could be installed on site with no field reinforcement of steel joists required.

Advantages Of The Chosen Structural System

The main advantage of selecting the steel joist system was economics over a (formally traditionally) structural steel structure. While utilizing structural steel in both systems, the joist system was lighter and more easily erected. Cost savings extended into all aspects including design, fabrication, transportation, and erection, etc. All of this combined into a shorter erection time which enabled the project to be dried in a much shorter time and ultimately a shorter project time for the owner.

Project Scope

Provide all labor, equipment, and material necessary to provide professional services, detail, fabricate, and field erect all structural and miscellaneous steel for the Hangar, Core, and Shops areas that encompass the S.W.Q. Service Center Phase 2. This addition more than doubles the existing Service Center Phase 1. Items supplied include Structural Steel (columns & beams), Truss Framing, Hangar Door Guides framing and bracing, Mezzanine Beams, Draft Curtin framing, Perimeter Angles and Bent Plates, Mechanical Roof Frames, etc. This was a team effort by Haskell, Steel Erector’s, and New Millennium.

Project Details

Project Construction Cost: $65,386,250
Joist cost, including fabrication and erection: $2,563,900
Size (square ft.): 218,375
Roof area using joists (square ft): 218,375
Floor area using joists (square ft.): 325,041
Joist area (square ft.): 543,416
Joist engineering to delivery (# days): 188
Joist erection (# days): 2,425

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