How the workforce program grew

From free courses for the Indian Head workforce in the early years to a fully online MEng and Graduate Certificate in later years. CECD's education programs grew alongside the broader energetics enterprise.

Three milestones

A founding partnership with Indian Head, a special-topics curriculum that became permanent, and a mission that widened in 2015.

№ 01 Founding
1998

Origins at Indian Head

CECD was founded as the Center for Energetic Concepts Development, a cooperative research group between the University of Maryland and the Naval Surface Warfare Center Indian Head Division. Specialized energetics curricula followed, including over $800K in free courses for the NAVSEA Indian Head workforce at College Park and the College of Southern Maryland.

UMD + NSWC IHD
№ 02 Curriculum
2009

The program goes online, and the courses stick

The Graduate Certificate in Energetic Concepts launched in Fall 2009 as a fully online program. Courses first taught as ENPM 808 special topics earned permanent numbers: Shockwave Physics I and II became ENPM 681 and 682, Chemistry of Energetic Materials became ENPM 683, and Rocket Propulsion became ENPM 684.

ENPM 681 to 684
№ 03 Mission
2015

A broader mission

The center was renamed the Center for Engineering Concepts Development to reflect its wider role in engineering education, research, and the impact of engineering on society. Its Engineering for Social Change course reached more than 500 students between 2015 and 2023.

Energetic to Engineering

The curriculum

Online MEng and Graduate Certificate in Energetic Concepts.

The Graduate Certificate in Energetic Concepts launched in Fall 2009 as a fully online, four-course, twelve-credit program through the Clark School's online graduate engineering programs. Coursework applied toward the thirty-credit Professional Master of Engineering.

ENPM 681

Shockwave Physics I

Conservation equations for plane steady shocks, wave stability, impedance matching, experimental techniques, and the thermodynamics of shock waves.

Formerly ENPM 808V

ENPM 682

Shockwave Physics II

Elastic-plastic solids, phase transitions, porous solids, detonation waves in ideal and non-ideal explosives, and shock initiation of high explosives.

Formerly ENPM 808D

ENPM 683

Chemistry of Energetic Materials

Explosives, propellants, and pyrotechnics organized by functional group, with crystallization, polymorphism, sensitivity, and compositions.

Formerly ENPM 808Q

ENPM 684

Rocket Propulsion

Performance, nozzle theory, and thermodynamics, with analyses of solid, liquid, and hybrid rocket motors and propellant classification.

Formerly ENPM 808X

ENME 707

Combustion & Reacting Flows

Thermochemistry and chemical kinetics of reacting flows: premixed and nonpremixed flames, ignition and extinction, modeling, and diagnostics.

Core curriculum

ENME 808B

Materials by Design

Advanced topics course in the energetic concepts curriculum.

Advanced topics