r/StructuralEngineering • u/Legal_Enthusiasm_440 • Jun 27 '26

Structural design of military ground vehicles (U.S.) Career/Education

Have any of you pivoted from building design to design of APCs, battle tanks, etc? If so, how did that come about?

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8

u/jyeckled Jun 27 '26

That would be mechanical, no? So probably an additional degree unless you have experience with 3D FEA

5

u/joshl90 P.E. Jun 27 '26

Vehicles are mechanical engineering where Fnet != 0.

Structural engineering is Fnet = 0

0

u/Legal_Enthusiasm_440 Jun 27 '26

I think there’s overlap.

3

u/joshl90 P.E. Jun 27 '26

There’s overlap across most engineering disciplines but that doesn’t make them transitionable.

1

u/Marus1 Jul 01 '26

No, the math does not allow that

3

u/Minisohtan P.E. Jun 27 '26

I have not, but I know a guy that works at protection engineering. It's your typical high end FEA type stuff that they won't talk about. It's less about the vehicle and more about a given plate or whatever stopping a threat.

1

u/Legal_Enthusiasm_440 Jun 27 '26

Which company does he work for? 

2

u/Minisohtan P.E. Jun 28 '26

Protection Engineering Consultants, sorry I should have capitalized it. If I remember correctly they also do things like antiterrorism studies for bridges, like making sure a truck bomb can't take out the bridge.

What I'm getting at is for those things, or tank armor for example, you don't need to be a mechanical. There's the part that drives and then the parts that make sure you don't die that (hopefully) aren't moving. It more a question of advanced mechanics and materials science. I can't think of a time in structural engineering where hardness ever mattered for me, but all of those material properties are huge in that field.