GovernmentExecutive.com

April 2000

Broad Mission Defines Labs

he Engineer Research and Development Center, headquartered at the Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, Miss., was created in 1998 to centralize management of the Army Corps of Engineers' eight laboratories located at four sites. The labs manage a diverse research portfolio, worth more than $430 million annually, for military customers, other government agencies and the private sector. The four sites together employ about 2,400 people; the sites' highly -specialized lab facilities are valued at more than $1.2 billion.

The Waterways Experiment Station is the largest site and is home to five labs:

• Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory. Scientists and engineers study shoreline and beach erosion control; design, construction and maintenance of navigation channels, harbors, hydraulic structures, reservoirs, locks, levees and channel realignments for navigation and flood control; coastal and inland dredging; shoaling; salinity problems; groundwater modeling; over-the-shore military logistics; hydrology; and hydroenvironmental modeling.
• Environmental Laboratory. From cleanup and restoration of polluted Defense and Energy Department sites to managing wetlands, scientists research solutions for a range of military and civil environmental issues.
• Geotechnical Laboratory. Geologists and other experts study dam and levee construction, military vehicle mobility, earthquake engineering, pavements, groundwater protection and contaminant abatement. Among the lab's tools is the most powerful centrifuge in the world.
• Structures Laboratory. Scientists study the effects of weapons on structures, durability of construction materials, explosives technology and applications for combat engineering. The lab is also leading the effort to devise better ways to evaluate, rehabilitate and maintain aging civil hydraulic structures and improve technology for new construction.
• Information Technology Laboratory. Besides managing the Corps' software and hardware systems, engineers manage one of four DoD high-performance computing centers and the tri-service computer-aided design and drafting/geographic information systems center.

The other sites include:

• Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, Hanover, N.H. As the only DoD lab that addresses problems unique to cold regions, researchers analyze implications for military and civil engineering and technology in cold regions, seismic-acoustic physics and tools for military combat and survival in cold weather.
• Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, Champaign, Ill. Research focuses on increasing the military's ability to more efficiently construct, operate, and maintain its installations and ensure environmental quality and safety while reducing life-cycle costs. The lab is on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, allowing staff to work with the faculty at the school's College of Engineering.
• Topographic Engineering Center, Alexandria, Va. The lab serves as the Army's primary agent for analyzing terrain, conducts precision surveying, mapping, and image analysis, and maintains geographic information systems for DoD.