Marsden Matting
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Marsden Matting is standardized, perforated steel matting material originally developed by the United States at the Waterways Experiment Station shortly before World War II, primarily for the rapid construction of temporary runways and landing strips. The material is also commonly known as Marston mats for a town in North Carolina adjacent to Camp Mackall airfield where the material was first manufactured[1] and used in November 1941.[2] The material was also used in the Korean and Vietnam Wars where its common name, from its NSN nomenclature, is pierced (or perforated) steel planking or PSP.
[edit] Description
Marsden matting consisted of steel strips with holes punched through it in rows and U-shaped channels formed between the holes. Hooks were formed along one long edge and slots along the other long edge so that they could be connected to each other. The short edges were straight cut with no holes or hooks. To achieve lengthwise interlocking, the mats were laid in a staggered pattern.
The hooks were usually held in the slots by a steel clip that filled the part of the slot that is empty when the adjacent sheets are properly engaged together. The holes were bent up at their edges so that the beveled edge stiffened the area around the hole. In some situations a T-shaped stake could be driven, at intervals, through the holes to keep the assembly in place on the ground. Sometimes the sheets were welded together.
The typical Marsden matting was the M8 landing mat. A single piece weighed about 66 pounds and was 10 feet long by 15 inches wide. The hole pattern for the sheet was 3 holes wide by 29 holes long resulting in 87 holes per mat.
[edit] History
[edit] World War II
Marsden Matting was extensively used during World War II by Seabees (Construction Battalions) and other front line construction personnel to build runways and other readily usable surfaces over all kinds of terrain in the Pacific Theater of Operations.
On Pacific islands the matting would typically have been covered with crushed and rolled coral or soil to form a level surface. The perforated and channeled design of the matting created strength and rigidity and facilitated drainage. A runway two hundred feet wide and 5000 feet (1500 m) long could be created within two days by a small team of engineers.[3]
[edit] Berlin Airlift
At the start of the Berlin Airlift the runways at Tempelhof Airport in the US Zone in Berlin were made of PSP. Designed to support fighters and smaller cargo aircraft, the C-54 Skymaster that formed the backbone of the U.S. effort was too heavy for the PSP. Berliners were hired to fix the runway between the three-minute arrivals, running onto the runways with bags of sand to dump onto the mats and soften the surface.
[edit] Legacy
Large quantities of matting were produced; approximately 2 million tons costing more than US$200 million (in the 1940s).[4] At the end of the war a large amount of the material remained as war surplus and was pressed into use in various civil engineering applications such as road and bridge construction. As they were made from steel with a high manganese content, the matting was also highly resistant to corrosion.[5] In various countries located in the Pacific Theatre, particularly New Guinea, matting still remains in use as fencing[6] or roadway barriers, in some cases stretching for miles.
[edit] References
- ^ Cohen, Stan. The Forgotten War Volume Four, note on page 90.
- ^ Alaska Geographic Vol 22, No 4, p12.
- ^ Photos of jungle to airfield in three weeks
- ^ U.S. Army Corps of Engineers article on Landing Mat Development
- ^ Manganese alloy properties
- ^ Tarawa Photos
