Each year, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) welcomes hundreds of student interns from colleges and universities across the nation, including several students from our nation’s military academies. The hands-on research experience they receive, and the opportunity to work alongside engineers and scientists who are leaders in their field, helps forge a relationship between the top researchers of today and our nation’s leaders of tomorrow. “If you want to intern here at ERDC, you will have an experience unlike any other you will have in your career. You get the opportunity to work alongside world-class researchers and premiere facilities and tackle a swath of problems you might not even have known existed,” Leigh Provost, a research hydraulic engineer at ERDC’s Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory, said. “… if you want the opportunity to work in an area that's essentially a playground for engineers, this is the place to be.”

The U.S. Army Engineer and Research Development Center (ERDC) broke ground recently on its new Permafrost Tunnel Operations Facility, a 4,300 square-foot building that will contribute to significant advances in permafrost engineering and geotechnical research. The facility will be built adjacent to the CRREL Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility in Fox, Alaska. Expected to be completed in November 2025, it will house a laboratory with cold storage and a three-dimensional permafrost test bed, as well as office and meeting space, a visitor briefing area, and garage work and maintenance space.

Jeremy Herring and Kelly Ervin from the U.S. Army...

Our pavement infrastructure is a critical national asset that impacts military mobility, the transport of goods, and personal travel. However, current pavements do not provide the desired durability, requiring frequent maintenance resulting in a high logistical burden and elevated carbon footprint. For the U.S. military, which demands strong pavements that can support its heavy vehicles and aircraft, the high volume of repairs means heavy machinery and repair materials must regularly be moved to far-flung locations. Responding to this need, a partnership between the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC), the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Illinois’s Center for Transportation Research seeks to use novel electron beam accelerator technology to create more durable pavements. The unique collaboration combines Fermi Lab’s deep knowledge in particle acceleration science and technology with ERDC’s extensive expertise in military pavement research dating back to World War II. This effort will dramatically improve pavement strength, toughness and service time, potentially saving the Department of Defense hundreds of millions of dollars, while also reducing the pavement industry’s large carbon footprint.

To optimize a smart transparent battle space on tomorrow’s multi-domain battlefields, the Army needs an accurate method to detect and interpret acoustic and seismic signals that travel across diverse boundaries. This is most significant in contested littoral zones, where land, air and water (LAW) domains converge. The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center launched a new trans-disciplinary basic research (6.1) project to characterize the full LAW wavefield within a littoral zone. This time lapse video documents the construction of a prototypical littoral zone specially designed to directly measure acoustic signals as they pass through the distinct media boundaries.

To optimize a smart, transparent battle space on tomorrow’s multi-domain battlefields, the Army needs an accurate method to detect and interpret acoustic and seismic signals that travel across diverse boundaries. This is most significant in contested littoral zones, where land, air and water (LAW) domains converge. The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center launched a new trans-disciplinary basic research project to characterize the full LAW wavefield within a littoral zone. This time lapse video documents the construction of a prototypical littoral zone specially designed to directly measure acoustic signals as they pass through the distinct media boundaries.

To optimize a smart transparent battle space on tomorrow’s multi-domain battlefields, the Army needs an accurate method to detect and interpret acoustic and seismic signals that travel across diverse boundaries. This is most significant in contested littoral zones, where land, air and water (LAW) domains converge. Fully characterizing broadband pressure signals that propagate across LAW interfaces can provide early warning or intelligence and provides a capability to quantify transparency across the operational environment. However, it is difficult to interpret signals that have crossed media boundaries because historic studies have only focused on each distinctive medium. There is no comprehensive physics framework that can accurately predict how disorderly waveforms freely traverse these boundaries, leaving a critical basic science knowledge gap. To overcome these challenges, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center launched a new trans-disciplinary basic research (6.1) project to characterize the full LAW wavefield within a littoral zone. The fusion of disciplines -- including air and underwater acoustics, geophysics, and hydrology -- aims to develop a full-wavefield description of coupled media in the environment.

To optimize a smart transparent battle space on tomorrow’s multi-domain battlefields, the Army needs an accurate method to detect and interpret acoustic and seismic signals that travel across diverse boundaries. This is most significant in contested littoral zones, where land, air and water (LAW) domains converge. Fully characterizing broadband pressure signals that propagate across LAW interfaces can provide early warning or intelligence and provides a capability to quantify transparency across the operational environment. However, it is difficult to interpret signals that have crossed media boundaries because historic studies have only focused on each distinctive medium. There is no comprehensive physics framework that can accurately predict how disorderly waveforms freely traverse these boundaries, leaving a critical basic science knowledge gap. To overcome these challenges, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center launched a new trans-disciplinary basic research (6.1) project to characterize the full LAW wavefield within a littoral zone. The fusion of disciplines -- including air and underwater acoustics, geophysics, and hydrology -- aims to develop a full-wavefield description of coupled media in the environment.

The USACE Engineering With Nature® (EWN) program uses remote sensing methods to help practitioners plan projects that align natural processes and engineering capability for greater benefits. Remotely sensed data can reveal changes over the life of a project to quantify benefits and communicate project outcomes. USACE spends billions each year to alleviate the effects of sea-level rise on coastal marsh and barrier islands that provide engineering and environmental function. Incorporating EWN principles into these projects often produces more efficient and sustainable benefits for communities while accomplishing the mission. Learn more: https://ewn.erdc.dren.mil/?p=5049

The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory is expanding its capability in extreme cold weather research with its new Climatic Cold Chamber Building. The facility will be used for military research, development, test, and evaluation applications with a focus on the emerging needs of the warfighter. Plus, it will support the development of science and technology capabilities relevant to the 21st century, with a focus on new fields of research.

Are you heading to the beach this summer? Don’t forget some spare change and your smartphone, because we need you to SandSnap. So what is it? SandSnap is a collaborative project to engage citizen scientists, build a database of beach sand grain size, and educate the next generation about coastal processes. Check out this video on how easy it is to SandSnap at your favorite beach. Video Editor: Me'Kiyla Brown

As missions evolve for the U.S. military, so have the requirements for Airfield Damage Repair or ADR. The Department of Defense’s existing ADR capability requires significant manpower, equipment, and pre-positioned material at key bases. But under its new adaptive basing concept of operations, ADR will need to be lighter and more agile. Researchers from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory collaborated with the Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC) and the Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC) to develop an Expedient and Expeditionary Airfield Damage Repair (E-ADR) solution to deliver just enough, just in time solutions for the Warfighter. Their efforts culminated in a multi-year joint capability technology demonstration, or JCTD, and military utility assessment at McEntire Air National Guard Base, South Carolina.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has produced a new enterprise research and development (R&D) strategy focused on discovering, developing and delivering innovative solutions for our nation’s most complex engineering challenges. The USACE R&D Strategy focuses on 10 priorities and is a strategic collaborative effort that uses innovative solutions to save time, money and effort in addressing generational problems. The strategy charges USACE divisions, districts and centers to facilitate a whole-of-government approach to tomorrow’s problems. To ensure successful strategy execution, USACE will examine future research needs, focus on collaborative R&D application, enhance R&D community engagement and serve as a key partner in the whole-of-government effort for solutions. To view and download the USACE R&D Strategy, visit https://usace.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16021coll11/id/5457.

As missions evolve for the U.S. Military, so have the requirements for Airfield Damage Repair (ADR). The Department of Defense’s existing ADR capability requires significant manpower, equipment and pre-positioned material at key bases. But under its new adaptive basing concept of operations, the military’s ADR capability will need to be lighter and more agile. Researchers from the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center’s Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory collaborated with the Air Force Civil Engineer Center (AFCEC) and the Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC) to develop an Expedient and Expeditionary Airfield Damage Repair (E-ADR) solution to deliver just enough, just in time solutions for the Warfighter.