Photo By Amanda Clark | The U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) at Fort McCoy, WI...... read more read more
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Personnel with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) conducted a construction experiment on South Post at Fort McCoy in mid-September.
Jeb Tingle, senior scientific technical manager with the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center in Vicksburg, Miss., described what the ERDC experiment was all about.
“We’re here … conducting an experiment on additive construction technology where we are looking at developing materials and equipment solutions for serving the Army to be able to print maneuver enabling infrastructure,” Tingle said. “So, we’re able to print culverts, jersey barriers, retaining walls, things that the military will need to complete construction in a theater of operations.
“This technology will enable the Army to go to into a remote area, harvest local materials, and be able to use those materials to make concrete that’s sufficient enough to make these items without having to transport the logistical burden of carrying all these different things,” Tingle said. “This technology allows us to complete a lot of different infrastructure with one set of equipment, one set of materials. We can do a lot of different missions with this technology. I’m here today with our partners with Applied Research and Associates, as well as the University of Arkansas, Iowa State University, and Robotic Construction Technologies.”
Tingle added the industry, academic, and government partnership is providing innovative solutions for solving complex infrastructure problems and “enabling us to do our missions anywhere in the world.”
Jim Mantis with Applied Research and Associates discussed some of the technologies used for the experiment.
“What we have on site here today, several different pieces of equipment that we’re conducting experimentation with,” Mantis said. “We’ve got first the portable concrete mixer that we use … (that’s) Army owned and operated. It was furnished to us from government property to do this research. So, it’s a mixer that they typically conduct to mix up concrete in a job site. We use that to mix up our local materials that we’re using from the Fort McCoy area here to make concrete out of those for our additive construction project.
“The portable concrete mixer feeds the material into the material pump,” Mantis said. “That pump is very unique and it was developed as part of the research on this project so that we can push that material off to the to the additive construction printer that we use to actually perform the print work. Then we have the tower printer back there.
“What it is … it takes the concrete from the pump and deposits it on the spot that you’re going to use it to create the items that Mr. Tingle was talking about,” Mantis said. “We’ve got several different things that we can build with it. There’s a catalog of items that come along with this that are pre-engineered solutions for different mission sets that enhance mobility or in place counter-mobility objects.
Mantis said there’s also capability to take 3D models and various computer-aided drafting formats and cut them up into slices and turn it into code so that the machine could use that to follow the path to make the items.
“This innovative technology is allowing us to essentially 3D print complex objects using concrete that’s made from these local materials,” Mantis said. “It minimizes the amount of materials we have to transport overseas. We can bring just a little bit of cement with us. We can mix it with the local materials. We can make concrete that’s strong enough to support the design and construction of all these different items.”
Mantis further said the technology will provide an innovative tool for the Army to select whatever mission they’re involved with.
“They can select items from this pre-engineered design catalog software that we’ve developed and enable them to print those objects in the field near the point of need and minimize the number of logistical requirements to transport materials but also to transport the items from a staging area to the point of need,” he said. “This capability should empower the Army to be more effective in its maneuver and counter-mobility missions.
Tingle said Fort McCoy was picked for the experiment because the installation has a history of providing innovative training capabilities for a lot of the different Army and other services.
“We had great experiences working with Fort McCoy in the past,” Tingle said. “They have a lean-forward attitude to meet the Army’s mission and so when we contacted Fort McCoy about coming here they had the right soil types that would be essential for making quality concrete.
“This is a sandy soil environment,” Tingle said. “The natural ground that we can just dig out of the ground has soils that we can then do a small amount of processing of those soils to remove some of the oversized particles or organics and then we can put those directly in the Army’s concrete mixer and be able to create a concrete that’s strong enough to print with. Fort McCoy is also a very innovative installation in terms of supporting experimentation.”
The experiment was conducted adjacent to Young Air Assault Strip.
“The site we’re on we’ve conducted a number of experiments here in terms of evaluating the C-17 aircraft’s ability to land on unpaved landing zones. and since that time, we’ve had this great relationship coming here and doing different experiments,” Tingle said. “They’ve always been very supportive of the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center and our activities and so they’re a great organization to work with and it’s been a pleasure to come here and do this experiment.
Tingle added they did part of the training and experimentation with National Guard troops.
“We’re really hoping to get feedback on the equipment from the Soldiers who were here from both Wisconsin Army National Guard and the Maryland National Guard that were able to get some hands on the equipment, get some hands on some of the training modules that we’re working on developing as this technology advances, and we’re really looking for their feedback,” Tingle said.
It’s a great touch point with Soldiers in order to understand several things about the equipment and the materials. Such as does the material make sense? Are they going too far in depth? Are they covering things to the right level of detail so that they can understand it and go out and execute it?
“What we did is we developed several training modules around this material so that we could test that out here and get that feedback from them on it and then go out and execute the work and see if they can follow the materials that we put together and make it happen,” Tingle said. “So we’ll take those lessons learned and the feedback from the Soldiers, we’ll take that back, we’ll work with the research team, we’ll modify some of the techniques that we use to characterize the materials, we’ll modify some of the equipment solutions to make them a little simpler and easier for the Soldiers to understand and the Soldiers to be able to use and make them more effective in the combat zone. We’ll take those, we’ll modify the system, and then we’ll refine that and we’ll come back and we’ll do a final demonstration next year. Then we’ll use that to inform an acquisition decision by the Army acquisition offices.”
| Date Taken: | 11.25.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 11.26.2025 02:33 |
| Story ID: | 552434 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 14 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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