2013-2014 Assessment of the Army Research Laboratory by Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board

Author:Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The National Academies Press
Published: 2015-04-24T00:00:00+00:00

OVERALL TECHNICAL QUALITY OF THE WORK

Within the DoD and in the area of ballistic science and technology ARL has an unequaled record of achievement and timely support of the warfighter through its sustained development of advanced capabilities for defeating many types of enemy targets and platforms, and its development of increasingly lethal munitions to place adversary personnel and assets at risk while satisfying the spectrum of national security missions engaged in by the Army. ARL’s efforts in ballistic science address both fundamental understandings and urgent warfighter needs of great importance to national security. ARL’s personnel, facilities, and programs are the clear go-to place for the DoD and the entire defense agency enterprise in the area of ballistic science and engineering. As such, ARL is central to the national defense and needs to be supported by government at all levels.

The overall quality of ARL’s applied research and development is very high. There is, as ARL management realizes, a need to focus more on the basic research that will underpin future developments, particularly now that the Army may soon no longer be fighting two wars. The time is ripe, say ARL’s managers, for ARL and the Army to place emphasis on thinking strategically about what the Army wants and needs to be able to do 5 to 30 years from now. This is a good time to work on future groundbreaking advances and to emphasize incorporating progressive 6.1 research into the overall research portfolio. A plan for transitioning from 6.1 to 6.2 to 6.3 research needs to be clearly articulated and disseminated. Given the constraints on funding, a hierarchy of research priorities needs to be defined relative to the overall strategy. Projects need to be terminated when they no longer show promise or no longer play a significant role in the overall strategy.

ARL’s existing S&T work in energetics and ballistics is very well served by the current Aberdeen Proving Grounds infrastructure and facilities. There was clear evidence of speedy responses to changing needs to support the warfighter with innovations in ballistic survivability and lethality. ARL’s experimental program concerning threats is quite detailed and demonstrates commendable knowledge of how these threats are evolving. The spectrum of armor design demonstrated a broad array of technical approaches and flexible and rapid response. ARL’s staff are clearly motivated and competent, and all the staff members articulated a well-defined line-of-sight from their research to the mission of the ARL and to the warfighter. All the briefings and posters were well presented by the researchers. For the majority of posters, the work was state-of-the-art and was properly juxtaposed with research at other institutions. As one example, this aspect of the project on multiscale modeling of noncrystalline ceramics (glass) was impressive: the team is drawing on new results in nanotechnology, applying experimental equipment from geophysicists, and interacting with glass manufacturing R&D teams such as Corning’s. Similarly, the novel energetics synthesis, experimental characterization, and modeling efforts are excellent examples of a well-coordinated and integrated research program.

Many of the posters displayed

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