From Design to Sustainment: Carderock Engineers Share Structural Expertise

From Design to Sustainment: Carderock Engineers Share Structural Expertise

By Alisha Tyer, NSWC Carderock Division Public Affairs

When engineers discover structural damage or corrosion on a ship, they must determine whether the vessel can safely operate until it can be repaired. To support those decisions across the fleet, engineers at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division are providing specialized training to waterfront engineers, shipyards and regional maintenance centers across the Navy.

Spanning surface ship structural design, degraded structure assessment and submarine structural fundamentals, the effort brings together expertise from three branches within Carderock's Structures Division. Together, the courses help preserve and transfer decades of naval structural expertise to the next generation of waterfront engineers responsible for sustaining the fleet.

One of the primary courses focuses on assessing degraded structures aboard ships currently in service. According to Andrew Quillin, incoming branch head of Carderock's In-Service Ship Structures Branch, the training equips engineers with the analytical tools needed to evaluate structures that have experienced corrosion, damage or other forms of degradation over time.

"These checks give waterfront engineers the tools and knowledge to assess these issues themselves without always needing to reach back to NAVSEA [Naval Sea Systems Command] or the warfare centers," Quillin said.

The course teaches engineers how to evaluate residual structural strength and determine whether a structure can safely continue performing its intended function until teams can schedule and complete repairs. This capability becomes especially important when maintenance teams or shipyards cannot address an issue immediately.

Mary Meares, a structural engineer and instructor supporting the degraded structures course, said the work focuses on helping engineers understand and evaluate risk when making structural recommendations.

"In the end, we're trying to understand risk," Meares explained. "What's the likelihood of failure, and what would the impact of that failure be?"

Gabriel Banuelos, a structural engineer and instructor for the degraded structures course, added that the instruction empowers local engineers to perform assessments at the waterfront rather than relying entirely on outside subject matter experts.

"We're doing the analysis to prove that even with corrosion or whatever it is, the ship is still safe to operate," Banuelos said.

Assessing structures decades into a ship's service life begins with understanding how those structures were originally designed to perform. That foundational knowledge is the focus of Carderock's Surface Ship Structural Design Course, led by R.C. "Christian" Henes, a structural engineer in the Ship Structural Design and Acquisition branch.

Henes described the course as a launchpad for junior structural engineers and naval architects, introducing participants to the Navy's structural design philosophy, engineering criteria and analytical approaches used throughout a ship's life cycle.

"The real objective of this is providing that initial entry point," Henes said. "It lays the foundation for getting into some of the more advanced topics when it comes to assessing corroded structures in the in-service world."

Participants study the methodologies, technical standards and structural design considerations used to ensure ships can withstand the operational demands expected throughout their service lives. The course also helps engineers understand how mission requirements, survivability expectations and operating environments ultimately influence structural decisions made during the design process.

According to Henes, that perspective becomes increasingly important when engineers later transition into assessing ships that have spent decades in service.

"If you jump right into the in-service side, then you're missing that important aspect of where design assumptions came from," Henes said.

The training effort also extends to submarine and undersea vehicle structures. Engineers within Carderock's submarine and undersea structures community provide the course on pressure hull fundamentals and structural assessment techniques unique to undersea platforms.

Dr. Gobong Choi, a structural engineer in the Submarine and Undersea Vehicle Structures branch, said submarine structures operate within a significantly different risk environment because the pressure hull, which is designed to withstand extreme underwater pressure, plays a critical role in maintaining vessel integrity.

"The pressure hull is essentially what keeps our sailors safe underwater," Choi explained. "If the pressure hull fails, you lose the submarine and its crew, potentially within milliseconds."

Like the surface ship courses, the structural analysis instruction helps engineers develop the technical knowledge needed to assess in-service submarine structural issues and support maintenance and sustainment decisions across the waterfront.

Together, the courses reflect a broader effort within Carderock's structures community to preserve institutional knowledge while strengthening structural engineering capability throughout the Navy enterprise. Henes said Carderock remains uniquely positioned to provide that instruction because of the concentration of structural expertise developed at the command over decades of ship design, analysis and sustainment work.

"We kind of are this repository for that information," Henes said.

As new engineers enter the workforce and experienced professionals continue sharing their expertise, Carderock's structures community is working to ensure critical technical knowledge continues moving from one generation of engineers to the next.

For Banuelos, one of the most rewarding aspects of the work is seeing engineers return to their organizations with greater confidence in their ability to solve problems independently and make informed structural decisions at the point of need.

"We go out there and teach them the process," Banuelos said. "That way they can handle a lot of these issues themselves and know when they need to reach back for additional support."

Through these efforts, Carderock's structures community is helping ensure specialized structural knowledge extends beyond a single office, course or generation of engineers. By sharing expertise across the waterfront, the team is strengthening the Navy's ability to make informed engineering decisions in support of fleet readiness for years to come.