Civil Engineering

Civil Engineering

Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals,dams, and buildings. Civil engineering is the oldest engineering discipline after military engineering, and it was defined to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering. It is traditionally broken into several sub-disciplines including 

1.     Construction engineering. 

2.     Environmental engineering, 

3.     Geotechnical engineering,

4.     Structural engineering,

5.      Transportation engineering, 

6.     Municipal or urban engineering, 

7.     Water resources engineering, 

8.     Materials engineering, 

9.     Coastal engineering,

10.   Surveying.

Civil engineering takes place on all levels: in the public sector from municipal through to national governments, and in the private sector  from individual homeowners through to international companies.

History of the civil engineering profession

In the 18th century, the term civil engineering was coined to incorporate all things civilian as opposed to military engineering. The first self-proclaimed civil engineer was John Smeaton who constructed the Eddystone Lighthouse. In 1771 Smeaton and some of his colleagues formed the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers, a group of leaders of the profession who met informally over dinner. Though there was evidence of some technical meetings, it was little more than a social society.

In 1818 the Institution of Civil Engineers was founded in London, and in 1820 the eminent engineer Thomas became its first president. The institution received a Royal Charter in 1828, formally recognizing civil engineering as a profession.

The first private college to teach Civil Engineering in the United States was Norwich University founded in 1819 by Captain Alden Partridge. The first degree in Civil Engineering in the United States was awarded by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1835. The first such degree to be awarded to a woman was granted by Cornell University to Nora Stanton Blatch in 1905.

 

Construction engineering

Construction engineering involves planning and execution of the designs from transportation, site development, hydraulic, environmental, structural and geotechnical engineers. As construction firms tend to have higher business risk than other types of civil engineering firms, many construction engineers tend to take on a role that is more business-like in nature: drafting and reviewing contracts, evaluating logistical operations, and closely monitoring prices of necessary supplies.

Earthquake engineering

Earthquake engineering covers ability of various structures to withstand hazardous earthquake exposures at the sites of their particular location.

Earthquake engineering is a sub discipline of the broader category of Structural engineering. The main objectives of earthquake engineering are:

§  Understand interaction of structures with the shaky ground.

§  Foresee the consequences of possible earthquakes.

§  Design, construct and maintain structures to perform at earthquake exposure up to the expectations and in compliance with building codes.

Environmental engineering

Geotechnical engineering is an area of civil engineering concerned with the rock and soil that civil engineering systems are supported by. Knowledge from the fields of geology, material science and testing, mechanics, and hydraulics are applied by geotechnical engineers to safely and economically design foundations, retaining walls, and similar structures. Environmental concerns in relation to groundwater and waste have spawned a new area of study called geo-environmental engineering where biology and chemistry are important.

Some of the unique difficulties of geotechnical engineering are the result of the variability and properties of soil. Boundary conditions are often well defined in other branches of civil engineering, but with soil, clearly defining these conditions can be impossible. The material properties and behavior of soil are also difficult to predict due to the variability of soil and limited investigation. This contrasts with the relatively well defined material properties of steel and concrete used in other areas of civil engineering. Soil mechanics, which describes the behavior of soil, is also complicated because soils exhibit nonlinear (stress-dependent)strength  and stiffness

Water resources engineering

Water resources engineering is concerned with the collection and management of water (as a natural). As a discipline it therefore combines hydrology, environmental science, meteorology, geology, conservation, and resource management. This area of civil engineering relates to the prediction and management of both the quality and the quantity of water in both underground and above ground (lakes, rivers, and streams) resources. Water resource engineers analyze and model very small to very large areas of the earth to predict the amount and content of water as it flows into, through, or out of a facility. Although the actual design of the facility may be left to other engineers. Hydraulic engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water.

Materials engineering

Another aspect of Civil engineering is materials science. Material engineering deals with ceramics such as concrete, mix asphalt concrete, metals Focus around increased strength, metals such as aluminum and steel. Materials engineering also consists of protection and prevention like paints and finishes. Alloying is another aspect of material engineering, combining two different types of metals to produce a stronger metal.

Structural engineering

Structural engineering is concerned with the structural design and structural of buildings, bridges, towers, flyovers, tunnels, off shore structures like oil and gas fields in the sea, and other structures. This involves identifying the loads which act upon a structure and the forces and stresses which arise within that structure due to those loads, and then designing the structure to successfully support and resist those loads. The loads can be self weight of the structures, other dead load, live loads, moving (wheel) load, wind load, earthquake load, load from temperature change etc. The structural engineer must design structures to be safe for their users and to successfully fulfill the function they are designed for. Due to the nature of some loading conditions, sub-disciplines within structural engineering have emerged, including wind engineering and earthquake engineering.

Design considerations will include strength, stiffness, and stability of the structure when subjected to loads which may be static, such as furniture or self-weight, or dynamic, such as wind, seismic, crowd or vehicle loads, or transitory, such as temporary construction loads or impact. Other considerations include cost, constructability, safety, aesthetics and sustainability.

Surveying

Surveying is the process by which a surveyor measures certain dimensions that generally occur on the surface of the Earth. Surveying equipment, such as Dumpy levels and theodolites, are used for accurate measurement of angular deviation, horizontal, vertical and slope distances. With computerization, Electronic Distance Measurement (EDM), total stations, GPS surveying and laser scanning have supplemented the traditional optical instruments. This information is crucial to convert the data into a graphical representation of the Earth's surface, in the form of a map. This information is then used by civil engineers, contractors and even realtors to design from, build on, and trade, respectively. Elements of a building or structure must be correctly sized and positioned in relation to each other and to site boundaries and adjacent structures. Although surveying is a distinct profession with separate qualifications and licensing arrangements, civil engineers are trained in the basics of surveying and mapping, as well as .. Surveyors may also lay out the routes of railways, tramway tracks, highways, roads, pipelines and streets as well as position other infrastructures, such as harbors, before construction.

Land surveying

In the United States, Canada and in most Commonwealth countries land surveying is considered to be a distinct profession. Land surveyors are not considered to be engineers, and have their own professional associations and licensing requirements. The services of a licensed land surveyor are generally required for boundary surveys (to establish the boundaries of a parcel using its legal description) and subdivision plans (a plot or map based on a survey of a parcel of land, with boundary lines drawn inside the larger parcel to indicate the creation of new boundary lines and roads), both of which are generally referred to as cadastral surveying.

Construction surveying

Construction surveying is generally performed by specialized technicians. Unlike land surveyors, the resulting plan does not have legal status. Construction surveyors perform the following tasks:

§  Survey existing conditions of the future work site, including topography, existing buildings and infrastructure, and even including underground infrastructure whenever possible;

§  Construction surveying (otherwise "lay-out" or "setting-out"): to stake out reference points and markers that will guide the construction of new structures such as roads or buildings for subsequent construction;

§  Verify the location of structures during construction;

§  As-Built surveying: a survey conducted at the end of the construction project to verify that the work authorized was completed to the specifications set on plans.