CURRENT PROJECTS

ENGINEERING EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS

A collaborative effort between the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) for research and education, the program is a multi-year effort between the Weapons Engineering and Manufacturing Directorate of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and the Jacobs School of Engineering at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

The educational collaborations focus on the development of Damage Prognosis Technology. Damage Prognosis is defined as the prediction in near real time of the remaining useful life of an engineered system given the measurement and assessment of its current damaged (or aged) state and accompanying predicted performance in anticipated future loading environments.

The educational programs are designed to provide students with education from undergraduate enrichment offered through the LANL Dynamic Summer School program to the Master's of Engineering and PhD programs accredited by UCSD. Continuing education is also provided through short courses offered collaboratively between the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and UCSD. The Dynamic Summer School takes place in facilities located in the Research Park at Los Alamos; courses for the Masters and PhD programs are taught at UCSD and LANL by UCSD faculty and LANL staff.

The Dynamic Summer School, offered through the Engineering Institute at Los Alamos, provides a select group of prospective upper level undergraduate students and first year graduate students (limited to US citizens) with exposure to the broad field of engineering dynamics. Engineering dynamics encompasses technologies such as flight dynamics, vibration isolation for precision manufacturing, earthquake engineering, blast loading, signal processing, experimental modal analysis, etc.

The summer school curriculum emphasizes the multi-disciplinary nature of research in engineering dynamics and assigns students to multi-disciplinary teams. Each student is given an opportunity to apply analytical/experimental approaches to dynamics problems and to develop written and oral communications skills. Participants are required to give oral presentations of work through out the summer culminating in a paper written for a technical conference. We believe that the proposed program will not only benefit the students through their educational experience, but will hopefully make them aware of career possibilities in defense-related industries after they have completed their graduate studies.

UCSD's Masters and PhD programs are offered in the area of validated numerical simulation. Both Degree Programs involve theoretical and applied learning and employ a multidisciplinary curriculum focusing on the integration of predictive modeling, experimental diagnostics, and data interrogation culminating in a project-oriented capstone course on model validation and uncertainty quantification. Currently, no other institution offers a degree that combines these particular areas. Under this program, LANL is providing support for specially designated fellowships at the graduate level. The intention of these fellowships is to prepare and recruit the brightest graduate students for advanced degrees in the area of damage prognosis and validated simulations. The students engage in required coursework and research, spending time during the summer at LANL working on their research.

At present there are several collaborative projects underway that engage students, faculty and LANL technical staff in the integration and advancement of predictive modeling, advanced sensing, and information technology in a wide array of applications.