Machinery central to the upcoming 105mm projectile destruction campaign at the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant has been successfully reconfigured by plant engineers and technicians.

“Our maintenance teams stepped up to the plate and did a great job disassembling and reinstalling 10 Cavity Access Machines,” said Jason Remington, Maintenance Superintendent, PCAPP. “We had four shifts of workers, each with about 20 workers per shift, to get the CAMs ready for processing.”

These machines are the main component of the Munitions Washout System, part of an automated process that destroys obsolete chemical weapons. They hydraulically collapse each munition’s burster, draining the munition of mustard agent for later neutralization and biotreatment.

In September, the 155mm projectile destruction campaign ended, destroying nearly 300,000 155mm projectiles. For the campaign to destroy the smaller 105mm projectiles, new cavity access machines had to be reconfigured to process munitions.

Before disassembly, maintenance team members outfitted new machines to process the smaller 105mm projectiles for installation into the existing munitions washout system.

To determine the best method to dismantle the machines, maintenance team members took one apart three different times, aiding the team in creating a system of best practices for the remaining units.

“It was pretty much ‘plug and play’ to install the new CAMs,” said Remington. “With the pre-planning we did, it set us up for success.”