• Pittsburgh District to host National Public Lands Day activities at Berlin, M.J. Kirwan, Stonewall Jackson and Youghiogheny reservoirs

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Pittsburgh District is inviting the public to celebrate National Public Lands Day and partake in volunteer activities at Berlin Lake, Michael J. Kirwan Dam, Stonewall Jackson Lake and Youghiogheny River Lake, Saturday, Sept. 25.
  • USACE awards $24 million contract for Miami-Dade ecosystem restoration project

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District announces an award of a construction contract for ecosystem restoration in south Florida valued at more than $24 million.
  • An Investigation of the Feasibility of Assimilating COSMOS Soil Moisture into GeoWATCH

    Abstract: This project objective evaluated the potential of improving linked weather-and-mobility model predictions by blending soil moisture observations from a Cosmic-ray Soil Moisture Observing System (COSMOS) sensor with weather-informed predictions of soil moisture and soil strength from the Geospatial Weather-Affected Terrain Conditions and Hazards (GeoWATCH). Assimilating vehicle-borne COSMOS observations that measure local effects model predictions of soil moisture offered potential to produce more accurate soil strength and vehicle mobility forecast was the hypothesis. This project compared soil moisture observations from a COSMOS mobile sensor driven around an area near Iowa Falls, IA, with both GeoWATCH soil moisture predictions and in situ probe observations. The evaluation of the COSMOS rover data finds that the soil moisture measurements contain a low measurement bias while the GeoWATCH estimates more closely matched the in situ data. The COSMOS rover captured a larger dynamic range of soil moisture conditions as compared to GeoWATCH, capturing both very wet and very dry soil conditions, which may better flag areas of high risk for mobility considerations. Overall, more study of the COSMOS rover is needed to better understand sensor performance in a variety of soil conditions to determine the feasibility of assimilating the COSMOS rover estimates into GeoWATCH.
  • Penetration Modeling of Ultra‐High Performance Concrete using Multiscale Meshfree Methods

    Abstract: Terminal ballistics of concrete is of extreme importance to the military and civil communities. Over the past few decades, ultra‐high performance concrete (UHPC) has been developed for various applications in the design of protective structures because UHPC has an enhanced ballistic resistance over conventional strength concrete. Developing predictive numerical models of UHPC subjected to penetration is critical in understanding the material's enhanced performance. This study employs the advanced fundamental concrete (AFC) model, and it runs inside the reproducing kernel particle method (RKPM)‐based code known as the nonlinear meshfree analysis program (NMAP). NMAP is advantageous for modeling impact and penetration problems that exhibit extreme deformation and material fragmentation. A comprehensive experimental study was conducted to characterize the UHPC. The investigation consisted of fracture toughness testing, the utilization of nondestructive microcomputed tomography analysis, and projectile penetration shots on the UHPC targets. To improve the accuracy of the model, a new scaled damage evolution law (SDEL) is employed within the microcrack informed damage model. During the homogenized macroscopic calculation, the corresponding microscopic cell needs to be dimensionally equivalent to the mesh dimension when the partial differential equation becomes ill posed and strain softening ensues. Results of numerical investigations will be compared with results of penetration experiments.
  • Natural Language Indexing for Pedoinformatics

    Abstract: The multiple schema for the classification of soils rely on differing criteria but the major soil science systems, including the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the international harmonized World Reference Base for Soil Resources soil classification systems, are primarily based on inferred pedogenesis. Largely these classifications are compiled from individual observations of soil characteristics within soil profiles, and the vast majority of this pedologic information is contained in non-quantitative text descriptions. We present initial text mining analyses of parsed text in the digitally available USDA soil taxonomy documentation and the Soil Survey Geographic database. Previous research has shown that latent information structure can be extracted from scientific literature using Natural Language Processing techniques, and we show that this latent information can be used to expedite query performance by using syntactic elements and part-of-speech tags as indices. Technical vocabulary often poses a text mining challenge due to the rarity of its diction in the broader context. We introduce an extension to the common English vocabulary that allows for nearly-complete indexing of USDA Soil Series Descriptions.
  • USACE Vicksburg District Mat Sinking Unit forges ahead with revetment mission

    VICKSBURG, Miss. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Vicksburg District Mat Sinking Unit (MSU) forged ahead with revetment operations on the Mississippi River, Tuesday, following a safety pause due to COVID-19. The floating plant’s annual season took a four week pause to help ensure the safety of the crew during the most recent COVID-19 spike.
  • Corps of Engineers releases hunting map app

    SAVANNAH, Ga. – Officials at the three Army Corps of Engineers reservoir projects on the Savannah River have introduced a new mobile application to aid hunters. The free app will cover the Thurmond Lake, Russell Lake and Hartwell Lake areas.
  • USACE’s mobile Blue Roof sign-up vehicles are at new locations

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is announcing the latest mobile locations for its Blue Roof program sign up starting Sept 14.
  • Field Evaluation of GNSS/GPS Based RTK, RTN, and RTX Correction Systems

    Abstract: This Coastal and Hydraulic Engineering Technical Note (CHETN) details an evaluation of three Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)/Global Positioning System (GPS) real-time correction methods capable of providing centimeter-level positioning. Internet and satellite-delivered correction systems, Real Time Network (RTN) and Real Time eXtended (RTX), respectively, are compared to a traditional ground-based two-way radio transmission correction system, generally referred to as Local RTK, or simply RTK. Results from this study will provide prospective users background information on each of these positioning systems and comparisons of their respective accuracies during in field operations.