A BETTER BUNKER


OBSERVATIONS AND EXPERIMENTATION


Maj. Gen. Kimberly Colloton, left, and Col. Teresa Schlosser, right, visit an experiment to test the new bunker retrofit at Fort Polk, Louisiana, in December 2020. (Photos by U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center)


Design Center (PDC), developed simple and effective bunker enclosure door designs for the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). Te new designs sought to reduce the peak pressures experienced by an individual seeking shelter in a bunker by more than 90 percent.


Te response was rapid. Te USACE Reachback Operations Center received a request on the day of the attack seek- ing ERDC’s expertise in developing a protective solution. ERDC immediately assembled a team of experts to support rapid deployment of an in-theater modu- lar protective system and to provide tele-engineering support to CENTCOM


84 Army AL&T Magazine Fall 2022


for immediate courses of action. Te team also began working on a quick-reaction research plan to address the traumatic brain injury issue.


“Tis project had high visibility and a short timeline,” said Jessica K. Fulk, a research civil engineer at ERDC’s Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory and project lead for the bunker effort.


By August of 2020, CENTCOM tasked ERDC to replicate the events from Janu- ary 2020 to measure the blast properties that were experienced by the Soldiers and to reduce blast pressures inside the bunkers.


Te research team completed 120 high- fidelity simulations using ERDC’s DOD high performance computing system to evaluate pressure flow in and around objects. Te research used three million processor hours on the DOD High Performance Computing Modernization Program systems, as the complex models each took 10 to 24 hours per run on these supercomputers.


Tis modeling investigated a matrix of conditions, such as occupant location and bunker orientation and geometry. But the findings showed that changing these parameters did not significantly reduce personnel exposures.


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