Leveraging DoD Relationships and Interests to Improve Undergraduate Education and Enhance the Structural Engineering Profession

DoD organizations such as the Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC), the Air Force Civil Engineering Center, and the US Army Corps of Engineers provide design and analysis of structures to resist blast effects from accidental explosions and terrorist or foreign threats. Current code provisions for designing structures under accidental blast conditions and dynamic loading are given in UFC 3-340-02 (Change 2, 1 September 2014). The field of structural blast safety is uniquely and acutely more relevant to DOD agencies due to the nature of both malicious and accidental risks. Obviously, terrorist incidents address one component, but the requirement to safely store munitions on DOD installations sparked the formation of the DOD Explosives Safety Board in 1928 after the major accidental explosion at the Naval Ammunition Depot, Lake Denmark, New Jersey. The requirements persist, as all services face the challenges posed by explosives safety. Beginning in the fall of 2019, researchers at the NAVFAC Expeditionary and Engineering Warfare Center (EXWC) in Port Hueneme, CA and faculty at the US Military Academy in New York began partnering in search of mutually beneficial research and education opportunities. This paper presents a unique research project and capstone experience at the undergraduate level that will benefit DOD research, active duty service members, and undergraduate civil engineering students from June 2020 through May of 2021. Three civil engineering students embarked on a project-based study to support NAVFAC EXWC in their role as subject matter experts in protective construction for explosives safety for multiple military construction (MILCON) projects on Navy installations. Cadet work has extended learning on reinforced concrete, delved into new blast engineering design knowledge, incorporated the generation Mathcad-based engineering tools, and investigated performance-based alternatives to support rotation limits for one-way structural members identified in the UFC 3-340-02. The project has provided a wealth of opportunities to prepare cadets for graduate level experiences and learn new content, while the analysis and results from this capstone project will arm DoD engineers with new tools for design. This paper reports on the results of this effort leveraging DoD expertise and research with undergraduate experiential learning. The authors will demonstrate that the synergies associated with the DoD interests substantively improved the student capstone experience, resulting in enhanced achievement of broader ABET student outcomes, while simultaneously providing useful tools and better trained engineers to the profession.