News Stories

  • June

    USACE Marks 250 Years with Pivotal Support to the Army’s Birthday

    As the U.S. Army celebrated its 250th anniversary June 14 with a birthday festival and parade in the nation's capital, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was hard at work behind the scenes and on the logistical front lines. In a powerful intersection of history and engineering excellence, USACE’s contributions helped ensure parade success while also symbolizing its own 250th anniversary of building and defending the nation.
  • May

    USACE Navigation mission critical to Armed Forces’ strategic readiness

    When the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) needs to move over 1,000 trucks, trailers, and tons of equipment for a large training exercise, they rely on the cost-effectiveness and convenience of the nation’s waterways.
  • The Corps Environment – Spring 2025 edition now available

    The Spring 2025 edition of The Corps Environment is now available! This publication highlights how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is turning environmental challenges into mission-ready solutions. Content in this issue includes ongoing projects and initiatives from across the Army environmental community that are leveraging environmental stewardship as a force multiplier — enhancing military readiness, strengthening strategic partnerships and supporting community well-being.
  • USACE Completes Two-Week Regional Power Mission Exercise, Prepares for Upcoming Hurricane Season

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) successfully concluded a two-week Regional Power Mission Exercise on May 16, enhancing its readiness to provide critical temporary emergency power in the wake of a major disaster.
  • U.S. Engineering Team Assesses Colón, Panama’s Infrastructure Challenges, Strengthening Bilateral Partnership

    A team from the U.S. Army’s 553rd Forward Engineer Support Team-Advance (FEST-A) drove around important parts of the city of Colón, Panama, surveying the stormwater and wastewater systems on May 13, 2025. The survey was designed to find ways to bolster the ongoing partnership between the United States and Panama while addressing one of Panama’s largest city’s long-standing infrastructure issues.
  • OPTIC: Transforming Mission Planning with Safety, Efficiency, and Innovation

    The proliferation of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) in civil works, emergency response, and military applications is the primary driver for development of the Operator’s Tool for Information Collection (OPTIC). Designed to meet operational needs, OPTIC leverages decades of experience to improve mission planning, operational tracking, and data-driven decisions for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE).
  • April

    What is a Sapper? 250 Years of “Badass” Engineers

    In the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the term sapper carries weight. For 250 years, sappers have served as elite combat engineers, supporting frontline infantry in every war throughout American history.
  • March

    Double Duty: Chris Stewarts’ Service in and out of Uniform

    Chris "CJ" Stewart seamlessly balances his dual roles as a federal civilian logistics management specialist and an Army Reservist. Serving within the Resource Integration Division (RID) of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Logistics Activity (ULA), Stewart's civilian duties involve assessing logistics through the Command Logistics Review Program (CLRP). Simultaneously, as a Motor Transport Operator (88M) in the Army Reserves, his military focus is also squarely on logistics. Stewart recently completed a year-long activation based in Poland, where his mission involved deterring, defending against, and potentially defeating adversarial aggression. His logistical support stretched across multiple countries, including Poland, Croatia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Germany. During his deployment, Stewart held multiple critical command roles in addition to his regular duties, including SHARP Ambassador Program representative, Suicide Prevention Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge (NCOIC), Liaison Officer NCOIC, and Unit Movement Officer NCOIC.
  • USACE Aviation Program Office: Enhancing Efficiency and Compliance in UAS Operations

    The United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Aviation Program Office (APO) plays a pivotal role in advancing crewed and uncrewed aviation missions across the organization. Established to meet the growing demands of Civil Works, Emergency Response, and Combatant Command operations, the APO serves as the central aviation authority for USACE, ensuring the safe, legal, and efficient operation of Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS).
  • February

    The Corps Environment – Winter 2025 edition now available

    The Winter 2025 edition of The Corps Environment is now available! This edition features ongoing projects and initiatives that are proactively considering the environment and influencing partnerships in support of military readiness and community well-being.

News Releases

Modeling the dynamics of the Modular Causeway System

A U.S. Army Landing Craft Utility 2000 offloads equipment to a Trident Pier at Anmyeon Beach on the west coast of the Republic of Korea during exercise Combined Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (LOTS) 2015.  CJLOTS 2015 is an exercise designed to train U.S. and ROK service members to accomplish vital logistical measures in a strategic area while strengthening communication and cooperation in the U.S.-ROK alliance.

A U.S. Army Landing Craft Utility 2000 offloads equipment to a Trident Pier at Anmyeon Beach on the west coast of the Republic of Korea during exercise Combined Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore (LOTS) 2015. CJLOTS 2015 is an exercise designed to train U.S. and ROK service members to accomplish vital logistical measures in a strategic area while strengthening communication and cooperation in the U.S.-ROK alliance. (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. Russell Wolfkiel/Released)

331st Transportation Company (Modular Causeway System) inserts a Trident Pier into Anmyeon Beach on the west coast of the Republic of Korea during exercise Combined Joint Logistics Over the Shore (LOTS) 2015.  LOTS are military activities that include offshore loading and unloading of ships when fixed port facilities are unavailable or denied due to enemy activities.

331st Transportation Company (Modular Causeway System) inserts a Trident Pier into Anmyeon Beach on the west coast of the Republic of Korea during exercise Combined Joint Logistics Over the Shore (LOTS) 2015. LOTS are military activities that include offshore loading and unloading of ships when fixed port facilities are unavailable or denied due to enemy activities. (U.S. Navy Photo by Lt. Russell Wolfkiel/Released)

VICKSBURG, Miss. — In contingency operations, the Modular Causeway System (MCS), an assembly of floating modules, is often used for loading and unloading supplies and equipment from ship to shore. The U.S. Transportation Command has enlisted the help of researchers at the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) to numerically model the MCS and provide data that will aid in expanding the guidance to increase safety and efficiency for the warfighter.

In any military operation, logistical support is dependent on several variables, including environmental conditions, infrastructure and combatant constraints. Moving personnel, supplies and equipment can be especially complex during Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore operations, or JLOTS, when a modern deep-water port is unavailable, inadequate or damaged.

JLOTS operations have been a part of the U.S. military’s strategy since its inception and were used in theaters such as Vietnam, Grenada, Panama and Iraq. They provide required operational maneuver capabilities in areas of anti-access or area denial (A2/AD) environments and allow for movement of a heavy force.

The MCS can be joined together in various configurations. One important configuration is the Trident pier, as it offers a roll-on/roll-off berth for vessels that are directly connected to the shore. It is often utilized in austere environments or to supplement existing discharge facilities due to its high throughput capacity.

“We are providing additional data for the warfighter to help shape the guidance on determining beforehand where and when to deploy the MCS,” said Dr. Gaurav Savant, a research hydraulic engineer with the ERDC’s Coastal and Hydraulics Laboratory and lead for modeling the MCS. “We are going to provide states of the MCS when it’s in the ocean, in the process of going on the beach and when it actually hits the beach."

“By developing a high-fidelity computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model for the MCS, we can provide planners precise knowledge of Trident pier behavior under various operating conditions to better quantify system limitations and support improved throughput, operational time and debarkation selection,” he said.

Current guidance states that all MCS configurations must cease operation at sea state three due to unsafe heave that may produce structural damage. “But sea states do not account for currents — like a rip current that might occur close to the shore,” said Savant. “We don’t want to deploy the MCS in operations or in theater and then find out there’s going to be some really high currents that are going to stop operations — that’s the worst case.”

Savant and his team are using an in-house, CHL-developed software called Proteus, along with the open source Chrono toolkit, to simulate how the MCS would respond to changing seas, winds, waves and currents. The dynamic linkage of Proteus and Chrono allows ERDC to computationally determine the behavior of the MCS without physically observing this behavior in the field, thereby reducing program costs.

“ERDC is at the forefront of development and application of state-of-the-art CFD models to investigate the interaction between fluids and structures,” said Savant. “By testing numerically on the supercomputers, we are able to adjust the numerics to simulate exactly what might be happening in the field.”

“The biggest challenge has been configuring the software to accurately depict how the various joints of the MCS modules respond to the changing sea,” he said. “If you don’t have the joints right, the behavior is going to be wrong, which could not only be inefficient but deadly. Getting those joints and the forces that act on those joints correct has been a challenge.”

ERDC researchers are also testing the stability of the Trident pier during its stabbing action when securing it into the beach. “ERDC is computationally simulating this and other conditions under various sea states and hydrologic forcings to populate a database that the warfighter can use to proactively determine the stability of the pier,” said Savant. “ERDC simulations will also help inform the pier configuration and debarkation site selection.”

The results from the simulations are being housed in an access-controlled web application. This application will allow the warfighter to query the simulation database and obtain an analysis of the pier response prior to initialization of operations.

“We have gotten some great feedback on how to transition this technology to the field,” said Savant. “We are going to create an app that allows the warfighter in the field to type in the approximate current conditions and receive a go or no-go situation response.”

“The technology we are using can easily transition to other Department of Defense agencies,” he said. “CFD modeling can provide significant cost and time savings and is essential for joint operations in any A2/AD environment.”


Mississippi Valley Division

Institute for Water Resources

South Pacific Division

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