MODULE 1

WEEK 1: DEFINITION OF ENGINEERING AND CIVIL ENGINEERING

Engineering is the application of scientific, economic, social, and practical knowledge in order
to design, build, and maintain structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes. It
may encompass using insights to conceive, model and scale an appropriate solution to a problem
or objective. The discipline of engineering is extremely broad, and encompasses a range of more
specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of
technology and types of application.

From a broader perspective, Civil Engineering can be defined as the field of engineering
sciences, related to design, construction and maintenance of buildings, dams, bridges, tunnels,
highways and other structures by the use of physical laws, mathematical equations and theories
of mechanics.

Civil engineering is the application of physical and scientific principles for solving the problems
of the society. Its history is intricately linked to advances in the understanding of physics and
mathematics. Because civil engineering is a wide ranging profession, it includes several separate
specialized sub-disciplines which is linked to knowledge of structures, materials science,
geography, geology, soils, hydrology, environment, mechanics and other fields.

Many experts and professional bodies have different but similar definitions of civil engineering.
According to Wikipedia, Civil Engineering is defined as 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.

The American Society of Civil Engineers defined Civil Engineering as “the design, construction
and maintenance of public works such as roads, bridges, water and energy systems as well as
public facilities like ports, railways and airports”.

Civil engineering is a composite of many specific disciplines that includes:

1. Structural Engineering
2. Water Resources Engineering
3. Environmental Engineering
4. Geotechnical Engineering
5. Earthquake Engineering
6. Highway and Transportation Engineering
7. Construction Engineering

Other recent areas of civil engineering are Forensic Engineering, Control Engineering, Urban
and Municipal Engineering (shares its scope with Environmental Engineering), and Coastal
Engineering. Coastal Engineering is a specialized aspect of Water Resources Engineering, but
could also stand as a distinct sub –discipline of Civil Engineering.

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.

Relevance of Civil Engineering in the Overall Infrastructural Development of the Country

Infrastructure is the framework of supporting systems consisting of transportation,

communication, energy, lifeline facilities, irrigation facilities etc. that helps a community or
government to function, grow and develop. Infrastructural development in any country
contributes to the economic development of the nation. Impacts of Infrastructural development
on a country include:

 Healthy and comfortable housing facility

 Protection from drought and flood
 Improvement in communication and transportation
 Safe domestic and industrial water supply
 Safe and scientific waste disposal
 Generation of electricity from nuclear, hydel, thermal, solar or wind energy
 Increase in food production
 Improved wealth, prosperity and standard of living
The role of civil engineer in the infrastructural development of country:

 Town and city planning

 They build suitable structures for the rural and urban areas for various utilities
 Construction of housing, commercial and industrial complexes
 Rehabilitation and rebuilding of structures
 They build tanks and dams to exploit water resources
 They purify the water and supply water to needy areas like houses, schools, offices, and
agriculture field
 Provide good drainage system and purification plants
 Provision and maintenance of communication (transportation) systems like roads,
railways, habours and airports
 They monitor land, water and air pollution and take measures to control them
 They create pollution free environment

WEEK 2

HISTORY OF THE CIVIL ENGINEERING PROFESSION

Engineering has been an aspect of life since the beginnings of human existence. It is the oldest
profession in the technical field and Civil Engineering is the oldest branch of Engineering.
Though in olden times, there was no formal education in the engineering field, construction of
various structures like pyramids of Egypt, Taj Mahal of India, Tower of Pisa in Italy were carried
out by local artisans with their traditional knowledge and experience. The earliest practice of
civil engineering may have commenced between 4000 and 2000 BC in Ancient Egypt and
Mesopotamia (Ancient Iraq) when humans started to abandon a nomadic existence, creating a
need for the construction of shelter. During this time, transportation became increasingly
important leading to the development of the wheel and sailing.

In the earliest period, the construction of structures was done using mud, stone and lime
mortar. It is reported that our ancestors lived in caves and tree tops. Later, they felt the need of a
house for protection from rain and other atmospheric effects. They made huts from twigs and
leaves. The construction of Pyramids in Egypt (circa 2700–2500 BC) is considered to be the first
major civil construction and an instance of large structure construction. Other ancient historic
civil engineering constructions include the Qanat water management system (the oldest older
than 3000 years and longer than 71 km,) the Parthenon by Iktinos in Ancient Greece (447–438
BC), Great Wall of China by General Meng T'ien under orders from Ch'in Emperor Shih Huang
Ti (c. 312 BC), Irrigation projects in China (around 220 BC), Julius Caesar’s Bridge over the
Rhine River (55 BC), Taj Mahal (Agra), Red Fort (Delhi), Golden Temple (Amritsar), Hawal
Mahal (Jaipur), Ellora Caves (Nasik), Guruvayoor Srikrishna Temple (Kerala), Maha Budha
Temple (Gaya), Malankara Orthodox Church (Kerala) in India. The Romans developed civil
structures throughout their empire, including aqueducts, insulae, harbors, bridges, dams and
roads. Though there was no formal education, they could design and construct such magnificent
structures which are still in existence without any serious deterioration.

In the 18th century, the term civil engineering was coined to incorporate all engineering works
other than for military purpose. 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. Until modern times there was no clear distinction between civil engineering and
architecture, and the term engineer and architect were mainly geographical variations referring to
the same person, often used interchangeably.

In 1818 the Institution of Civil Engineers was founded in London, and in 1820 the eminent
engineer Thomas Telford became its first president. The institution received a Royal Charter in
1828, formally recognising civil engineering as a profession. Its charter defined civil engineering
as: the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man,
as the means of production and of traffic in states, both for external and internal trade, as
applied in the construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, river navigation and docks for
internal intercourse and exchange, and in the construction of ports, harbours, moles,
breakwaters and lighthouses, and in the art of navigation by artificial power for the purposes of
commerce, and in the construction and application of machinery, and in the drainage of cities
and towns.

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.

Throughout ancient and medieval history most architectural design and construction was carried
out by artisans, such as stonemasons and carpenters, rising to the role of master builder.
Knowledge was retained in guilds and seldom supplanted by advances. Structures, roads and
infrastructure that existed were repetitive, and increases in scale were incremental.

One of the earliest examples of a scientific approach to physical and mathematical problems
applicable to civil engineering is the work of Archimedes in the 3rd century BC, including
Archimedes Principle, which underpins our understanding of buoyancy, and practical solutions
such as Archimedes' screw, Brahmagupta, an Indian mathematician, used arithmetic in the 7th
century AD, based on Hindu-Arabic numerals, for excavation (volume) computations.

SUB-DISCIPLINES OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

General civil engineers work closely with surveyors and specialized civil engineers to fit and
serve fixed projects within their given site, community and terrain by designing buildings,
drainage, pavement, water supply, sewer service, electric and communications supply, and land
divisions. General engineers spend much of their time visiting project sites, developing
community consensus, and preparing construction plans. General civil engineering is also
referred to as site engineering, a branch of civil engineering that primarily focuses on converting
a tract of land from one usage to another. Civil engineers typically apply the principles of
geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, environmental engineering, transportation
engineering and construction engineering to residential, commercial, industrial and public works
projects of all sizes and levels of construction.
Structural engineering
Structural engineering involves the design of small and large structures to ensure they can
withstand the stresses and pressures of their environments and remain safe for use throughout
their lifecycle. An understanding of building physics and statics, along with local building design
codes, are required to work in the discipline. Structural engineers can work on various kinds of
structures, including skyscrapers, bridges, and tunnels. Structural engineering is concerned with
the structural design and structural analysis of buildings, bridges, towers, flyovers (overpasses),
tunnels, off shore structures like oil and gas fields in the sea, aerostructure 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 (to be serviceable). 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.

Construction engineering/technology
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.

Geotechnical engineering
Geotechnical engineering is an area of civil engineering concerned with the rock and soil that
support 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. 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, stiffness, and dilatancy
(volume change associated with application of shear stress).
Environmental concerns in relation to groundwater and waste disposal have spawned a new area
of study called geo-environmental engineering where biology and chemistry are important.

Water resources engineering

Water resources engineering is concerned with the collection and management of water (as a
natural resource). 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 (aquifers) 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.
This area of civil engineering is intimately related to the design of pipelines, water supply
network, drainage facilities (including bridges, dams, channels, culverts, levees, storm sewers),
and canals. Hydraulic engineers design these facilities using the concepts of fluid pressure, fluid
statics, fluid dynamics, and hydraulics, among others.

Highway and Transportation engineering

Highway and Transportation engineering is concerned with moving people and goods efficiently,
safely, and in a manner conducive to a vibrant community. This involves specifying, designing,
constructing, and maintaining transportation infrastructure which includes streets, canals,
highways, rail systems, airports, ports, and mass transit. It includes areas such as transportation
design, transportation planning, traffic engineering, some aspects of urban engineering, queueing
theory, pavement engineering, Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), and infrastructure
management.

Environmental engineering
Environmental engineering deals with the treatment of chemical, biological, and/or thermal
waste, the purification of water and air, and the remediation of contaminated sites, due to prior
waste disposal or accidental contamination. Among the topics covered by environmental
engineering are pollutant transport, water purification, waste water treatment, air pollution, solid
waste treatment and hazardous waste management. Environmental engineers can be involved
with pollution reduction, green engineering, and industrial ecology. Environmental engineering
also deals with the gathering of information on the environmental consequences of proposed
actions and the assessment of effects of proposed actions for the purpose of assisting society and
policy makers in the decision making process. Environmental engineering is the contemporary
term for sanitary engineering, though sanitary engineering traditionally had not included much of
the hazardous waste management and environmental remediation work covered by the term
environmental engineering. Some other terms in use are public health engineering and
environmental health engineering.

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.

Coastal engineering
Coastal engineering is concerned with managing coastal areas. This encompasses planning,
design, and construction of projects to satisfy the needs and concerns in the coastal environment
such as harbor and marina development, shore protection, beach nourishment and other
constructed systems in the coastal wave and tide environment.

In some jurisdictions, the terms sea defense and coastal protection are used to mean,
respectively, defense against flooding and erosion. The term coastal defense is the more
traditional term, but coastal management has become more popular as the field has expanded to
include techniques that allow erosion to claim land.

REQUIREMENTS FOR CIVIL ENGINEERING

Education and licensure

Civil engineers typically possess an academic degree with a major in civil engineering. The
length of study for such a degree is usually three to five years and the completed degree is
usually designated as a Bachelor of Engineering, though some universities designate the degree
as a Bachelor of Science. The degree generally includes units covering physics, mathematics,
project management, design and specific topics in civil engineering. Initially such topics cover
most, if not all, of the sub-disciplines of civil engineering. Students then choose to specialize in
one or more sub-disciplines towards the end of the degree. While an Undergraduate (BEng/BSc)
Degree will normally provide successful students with industry accredited qualification, some
universities offer postgraduate engineering awards (M Eng/MSc) which allow students to further
specialize in their particular area of interest within engineering.

In most countries, a Bachelor's degree in engineering represents the first step towards
professional certification and the degree program itself is certified by a professional body. After
completing a certified degree program the engineer must satisfy a range of requirements
(including work experience and exam requirements) before being certified. Once certified, the
engineer is designated the title of Professional Engineer (in the United States, Canada and South
Africa, Nigeria e.t.c.), Chartered Engineer (in most Commonwealth countries), Chartered
Professional Engineer (in Australia and New Zealand), or European Engineer (in much of the
European Union). There are international engineering agreements between relevant professional
bodies which are designed to allow engineers to practice across international borders.

The advantages of certification vary depending upon location. For example, in the United States,
Canada, Nigeria and some other countries, "only a licensed professional engineer may prepare,
sign and seal, and submit engineering plans and drawings to a public authority for approval, or
seal engineering work for public and private clients." This requirement is enforced by state and
provincial legislation such as Quebec's Engineers Act. In other countries such as the UK no such
legislation exists. In Australia, state licensing of engineers is limited to the state of Queensland.
Practically all certifying bodies maintain a code of ethics that they expect all members to abide
by or risk expulsion. In this way, these organizations play an important role in maintaining
ethical standards for the profession. Even in jurisdictions where certification has little or no legal
bearing on work, engineers are subject to contract law. In cases where an engineer's work fails he
or she may be subject to the tort of negligence and, in extreme cases, the charge of criminal
negligence. An engineer's work must also comply with numerous other rules and regulations
such as building codes and legislation pertaining to environmental law.