Contact: James Carskadon

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Continuing its robust history of research in support of national defense and security, Mississippi State University will play a major role in testing the performance, safety and reliability of U.S. Army ground vehicles.

The U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center has named MSU as the contractor for the second phase of the Simulation Based Reliability and Safety (SimBRS) project. The maximum budget for the contract is $79 million over five years, subject to project needs. The research will be led by MSU’s Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems with support from other university units and outside entities.

“We are very excited to receive the SimBRS 2 contract,” CAVS Executive Director Clay Walden said. “This program enables us to streamline the process of engaging our researchers based on the emerging needs of our federal partners. For example, when working with our Army partners, we can rapidly go from defining a statement of work to actually getting to value-added work on that contract. This results in a competitive advantage for our center as we support our partners within the Department of Defense.”

The MSU-led team will use its advanced modeling and simulation capabilities to design computer simulation programs aimed at predicting the reliability and safety of Army ground vehicles. The models will assess Army vehicles at every stage of the vehicles’ life cycle and will comprehensively examine every part, down to the smallest details. Researchers also will create detailed models of the human body to assess occupant safety and human factors issues.

The work will support the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command’s Tank Automotive Research Development and Engineering Center’s mission to create a broad range of multi-scale modeling and validation tools to address ground vehicle reliability and safety, soldier-environment interface, and simulation-based design optimization.

MSU served as the contractor for the first SimBRS program. Through those efforts, MSU researchers delivered state-of-the-art modeling and simulation tools in the areas of blast and impact survivability, vehicle track system durability and development of advanced vehicle health sensors, among other areas. The modeling and simulation tools were thoroughly tested and validated.

The U.S. Army Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center develops, integrates and sustains the right technology solutions for all manned and unmanned DoD ground vehicle systems (GVS) and combat service support (CSS) equipment to improve Current Force effectiveness and provide superior capabilities for the Future Force. For more, visit www.army.mil/tardec.

CAVS is an MSU interdisciplinary center comprised of research, engineering design and development, as well as technology transfer teams for industry and government partners. For more, visit www.cavs.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.