Much of the physical infrastructure of our modern society is provided by Civil Engineers. Civil Engineers are concerned with all types of structures including dams, bridges, pipelines, roads, towers and buildings. They are responsible for the design and construction of all our transport systems, the design and management of our gas and water supply, sewerage systems, harbours, airports and railways. Civil Engineers plan, design and test the structures of private and public buildings and facilities.
They are also involved in many environmental areas such as the assessment of the impact large scale projects have on the environment and the collection and treatment of sewage and industrial wastes, pollution control, environmental control and resource protection and management.
Work opportunities for civil engineers are affected by fluctuations in the building and construction industry. As a result, the number of opportunities may rise or fall over a short period of time.
In the beginning, Civil Engineering included all engineers that did not practice military engineering; said to have begun in 18th century France. First "Civil Engineer" was an Englishman, John Smeaton in 1761.Civil engineers have saved more lives than all the doctors in historyde - velopment of clean water and sanitation systems.
Earthquake Engineering
Earthquake engineering is the field concerned with protecting society, natural and man-made environment from earthquakes by reducing the seismic risk to socio-economically acceptable levels. Traditionally, it has been defined as the study of behaviour of structures subject to seismic loading. However, the tremendous costs experienced in recent earthquakes have led to an expansion of its scope to encompass disciplines from the wider field of civil engineering and from sociology, economics and finance.
Environmental Engineering
Environmental Engineering is the integration of sciences and engineering principles to improve the natural environment, to provide healthy water, air, and land for human habitation and for other organisms, and to clean up pollution sites. Furthermore, it is concerned with finding plausible solutions in the field of public health, such as water borne diseases, implementing laws which promote adequate sanitation in urban, rural and recreational areas. It involves waste water management and air pollution control, recycling, waste disposal, radiation protection, industrial hygiene, environmental sustainability, and public health issues as well as a knowledge of environmental engineering law. It also includes studies on the environmental impact of proposed construction projects.
Geotechnical Engineering
Everything you see around you is supported by soil or rock. Geotechnical engineers are responsible for that. Anything that is not supported by soil or rock, either floats, flies or falls down.Geotechnical engineering is the branch concerned with the engineering behaviour of earth materials. Geotechnical engineering is important in civil engineering, but also has applications in military, mining, petroleum and other engineering disciplines that are concerned with construction occurring on the surface or within the ground. Geotechnical engineering uses principles of soil mechanics and rock mechanics to investigate subsurface conditions and materials, assess risks posed by site conditions; design earthworks and structure foundation.
Geotechnical engineering is also related to coastal and ocean engineering. Coastal engineering can involve the design and construction of wharves, marinas, and jetties. Ocean engineering can involve foundation and anchor systems for offshore structures such as oil platforms.
Hydraulic Engineering
Hydraulic engineering is the application of fluid mechanics principles to problems dealing with the transport, collection, storage, regulation, measurement, and utilization of water.
Hydraulic engineering as a sub-discipline of civil engineering is concerned with the flow and conveyance of fluids, principally water and sewage. One feature of these systems is the extensive use of gravity as the motive force to cause the movement of the fluids. This area of civil engineering is intimately related to the design of bridges, dams, channels, canals, and levees, and to both sanitary and environmental engineering.
A hydraulic engineer develops designs for spillways and outlet works for dams, culverts for highways, canals and structures for irrigation projects, and cooling-water facilities for power plants.
Structural Engineering
Structural engineers are most commonly involved in the design of buildings and large non-building structures but they can also be involved in the design of machinery, medical equipment, vehicles or any item where structural integrity affects the item’s function or safety. Structural engineers must ensure their designs satisfy given design criteria, predicated on safety (i.e. structures must not collapse without due warning) or serviceability and performance.
Structural engineers are responsible for engineering design and analysis. Entry-level structural engineers may design the individual structural elements of a structure, for example beams, columns, and floors of building. More experienced engineers may be responsible for the structural design and integrity of an entire system, such as a building.
Structural engineers often specialize in particular fields, such as bridge engineering, building engineering, pipeline engineering, industrial structures, or special mechanical structures such as vehicles, ships or aircraft.
Its sub-disciplines are: bridge engineering, structural health monitoring, design of structure.
Some professional bodies are ASCE, ICE (London), institute of structural engineers.
Geodesy (Surveying)
It is the science and art of making all essential measurements to determine the relative position of points or physical details above, on, or beneath the any surface, and to depict them in a usable form, or to establish the position of points or details.
Surveyors use elements of geometry and trigonometry, physics and engineering. Surveying equipment includes total stations, robotic total stations, GPS receivers, prisms, 3D scanners, radios, handheld tablets, digital levels, and surveying software.
It is required in the planning and execution of nearly every form of construction. It’s most familiar modern uses are in the fields of transport, building and construction, communications, mapping, and legal boundaries for land ownership.
Transportation Engineering
Transportation engineering is a major component of the civil engineering and mechanical engineering disciplines. Transportation engineering is the application of technology and principles to planning, functional design, operation and management of facilities for all modes of transportation to provide for the safe, efficient, rapid, comfortable, convenient, economical, and environmentally compatible movement of people and goods.
It usually involves an urban transportation planning model, requiring the estimation of trip generation (how many trips for what purpose), trip distribution (destination choice, where is the traveller going), mode choice (what mode is being taken), and route assignment (which streets or routes are being used).
Transportation engineers need to see that vehicles move smoothly on the road or track. Older techniques include signs, signals, markings, and tolling. Newer technologies involve intelligent transportation systems.
Its sub-branches are: highway engineering, airport engineering, railroad engineering, harbour and port engineering.
Some of the major professional bodies: NHAI, American Society for Highway Engineering (ASHE), Eastern Asia Society for Transportation Studies (EASTS), Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE).
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