Customer case

Server building gets ballistic protection with easy-to-install, ‘bolt-on’ Armox® 600T plates

May 15, 2024 6 min read

Case details

Product Armox® 600T

Country Sweden

Company SSAB - Oxelösund

Industry Steel distributors and stockholders

SSAB’s new server hall in Oxelösund is a wood-framed building in a style similar to common Scandinavian red cottages. It may not look tough from the outside, but it is heavily protected by Armox® armor plates attached to the inside walls.

SSAB takes the protection of its IT infrastructure very seriously. Utilizing its Armox^® 600T protection plates to shield the information hardware against outside threats made good business sense and was straightforward to accomplish.

Case details

Product Armox® 600T

Country Sweden

Company SSAB - Oxelösund

Industry Steel distributors and stockholders

Setting the scene for many protection applications

The way this server building is protected is widely applicable. It can be used for new buildings or as retrofit installations. Examples are offices, banks, embassies, police stations, safe rooms, and even safe rooms in retrofit ISO containers.

Despite their protection performance, Armox^® steels can be cut, bent, welded and machined.
Armox^® ballistic plates will outlast the building and when it has reached end-of-life, the steel is 100% recyclable, which is important for corporate sustainability goals and LEED / BREEAM certifications.

Building internal ballistic walls

To avoid reinforcing the building’s conventional construction we wanted to keep the ballistic protection plates as light as possible. Therefore, we choose our extra-high-hardness Armox^® 600T plate with outstanding protection properties even in thinner dimensions. Together with the building contractor we set up a number of criteria for how to simplify the installation of the ballistic plates.

Be easy to install (bolt-on)
Avoid welded joints
Avoid bending operations

The server building’s outer wall layer is a traditional wood façade. However, any outer building material can be used as it will not interfere with the internal ballistic protection.

Plug-and-play protection

The idea is to standardize the size for the majority of the plates, enabling a modular assembly. The ballistic system consists of three simple Armox^® pieces:

Vertical column plates
Horizontal cover plates
Cut-to-size cover plates to be mounted around the corners and the two doors

The column plates were laser cut (SSAB’s recommended method) to a standardized size. Laser cutting can also be applied to produce the column’s mounting holes so the columns could be screwed into the building’s wooden studs.

Ballistic cover plates weigh about 50 kg each

The ballistic cover plates were also laser cut to standardized sizes. The covers have laser-cut holes that match the location of the stud-welded bolts on the column piece. The column and cover plates become the building’s interior walls and were painted on all sides before installation.

The cover plates are mounted on standard M12 stainless steel bolt, stud welded onto the column plates. They weigh around 50 kg, making life easier for the installers. The column and cover plates overlap to create a high integrity, ballistic-resistant structure.