Civil Engineering
civil engineering is a major to
consider if you want to design bridges dams roads tunnels buildings railroads
pipelines and even some civil engineers will work on aircraft or spacecraft
structures and more but depending on what projects you want to work on and what
aspect of those projects you want to work on you will go into certain subfields
which can lead to very different career paths the main subfields that we'll
talk about that you can dive into in college are structural engineering
geotechnical water resources and transportation all civil engineers will take
mostly the same classes their first few years and learn the very very basics of
all of these sub disciplines then maybe their third but especially their last
year they will take a lot of electives in the field or maybe fields they want
to focus on so first structural engineering is about calculating and
understanding the forces strain stability and so on within the structure it
could be a bridge a skyscraper a landmark or even a spacecraft or aircraft
remember these structures are very heavy and need to support their own weight
so that they don't collapse now this subfield is the most math intensive and
has lots of physics all civil engineers will take a class called statics which
is all about the forces and systems that are not moving in basic physics you've
may have done a statics problem like where does this support have to be for the
system be totally balanced and therefore not moving you summed all the forces
which equals zero and all the torques which equals zero and that's the basics
of statics so if you're looking at the forces within a bridge or truss will the
same principles apply but now there's just more to it the weight is straight
down as shown in blue all the beams exert forces on one another but the sum of them
is equal to zero and the torque sum to zero as well because the bridge is not
moving as of course even more complicated than this but if you enjoyed that
kind of basic physics you see above then you'll likely enjoy the statics and physics
you see in structural engineering so that's just a very simplified explanation
but now let's dive into some of the classes they would take one class that
would be important for structural students is a reinforced concrete class in
concrete structures they read force it by putting steel beams in the concrete
we can't see those beams but here before construction is done you can see them
sticking out or you can see a lot of them on these unfinished columns so why do
they do this why isn't concrete good enough well concrete alone once hardened
has low tensile strength as in it does not handle being pulled very well
however it's okay with being compressed but to counteract at low tensile
strength they add steel beams and pour wet concrete which hardens around them
and then those steel beams have high tensile strength to counteract those types
of forces on the structure so in a lab for this class you might build the rebar
or the steel reinforcing rods pour the wet concrete onto them then once it
dries use a machine that holds the beam on both sides then apply forces in the
middle and keep increasing the force until the beam breaks or cracks and starts
falling apart that force being applied is sent to a computer that tells us the
loading on the beam so we can collect the data and get the properties that we
need you can take structural dynamics as an elective class dynamics is about
moving systems unlike statics so this is one of the few classes where motion is
included so whether it's wind or an earthquake that shakes a building you need
to know how that motion will impact the structure itself and all the forces
within it I've shown this animation before but mostly for mechanical engineers
as it's a vibrating system that they could analyze but civil engineers could
get into this as well they have to make sure their designs can stand up against
any type of movement the structure may be subject to you could take an elective
class on seismic analysis which is specifically about calculating the responses
of a structure to an earthquake or one on bridge engineering which would be a class
on highway bridges materials use distribution of loads and how forces are spread
throughout the structure and so on mechanics of materials like how twisting and
bending a beam or column causes it to become internally stress timber structure
design which is about analyzing properties and forces within wooden structures
and much more see how even if you choose to engineering you could still take
many different classes from the other structure students it's a very broad major
but hopefully you really get the idea by now lots of physics in this discipline
but mostly statics or forces and structures without movement in the real world
these engineers often work on the computer and use software for their designs
where that software does that advanced math to determine the forces throughout
the structure like you see here with an office block and its components you may
still have to do hand calculations but most of the rigorous analysis you learned
in school will be left to the software now let's move on to geotechnical
engineering and you'll already see how different these disciplines are
geotechnical engineers are concerned with the behavior of earth materials like
rock and soil but the main focus is soil this may seem odd but you'll see how
important this is the structural engineer can do everything right to make sure
the building will stand up but if the geotechnical engineer messes up and you
put a structure on soil that can't withstand it or is uneven the building could
fall sink into the ground or even lean to one side probably the most famous
being the Leaning Tower of Pisa which was a result of soil issues then they
also have to consider the foundation of the structures that are being designed
like should they have a shallow foundation or a deep foundation you may not
realize it but our houses and all the buildings you see have foundations that
go underneath the earth to keep the structure as stable as possible by
transferring the weight from the structure to the earth but geotechnical
engineers rely heavily on testing so a lab you might see in college is to go
out as a class and collect soil samples around your University and bring them
to lap you would have to classify it like is it sand gravel clay etc there are
many soil types and you may have to look at the grain size or how it reacts to
water you determine its water content by analyzing the sample which would be comprised
of a solid soil water and air of different masses and volumes but most importantly
you'll measure how the soil will react to mechanical loading or to different
forces acting on it so you might perform a tri-axial test for example too
complicated to explain for this Section but essentially you put the soil in an enclosed area and
apply a force or to the top which pushes down on the soil then pressure sensors
measure the pressure at different points to see how the soil is being affected
if you imagine a square sample of soil and you add a force to the top the soil
can fail along some weak plane basically the weight overpowers the friction
holding the soil particles together and the soil will start to slide which is
known as shear failure its ability to stand up to this is known as shear
strength which is one thing that the tri-axial test on the Left tests for and
this leads us to what a career in geotechnical engineering could be like you
might be the person who goes out to the field where structure is going to be
built and collect soil samples all around the area for testing or you could do
testing at the field one of the most used tests right now in this field is cone
penetration testing where a large truck goes out to the field which has all
this equipment on it and a cone is pushed into the soil and the pressure will
be monitored by a computer on the truck as it moves through the soil into the
earth based on the pressure you can analyze the soil mechanical properties or
maybe you could work in a lab where you would do the testing on the soil after
it's been collected like I showed with the tracks you'll test or maybe you
could work on the computer and input the different types of soil from the
various locations at the site so you can digitally layout the area that the structure
will rest on so you could be in the field in the lab or on the computer your
elective classes could include geotechnical earthquake engineering which would
be like learning the dynamic behavior of soil as opposed to the structure
itself then slope stability analysis and how to safely design structures on
slopes an example would be an embankment dam analysis of deep foundations where
the structure goes deep into the oats for a stronger support like for
skyscrapers and of course there are many more classes now let's move on to
Water Resources engineering this is about the design of systems to manage human
water resources they could work on a water treatment facility designing dams
pipelines channels canals and so on maybe you have to design a storm drain
system in the event the large storm where is all the water going to go and how
will you get it to the ocean efficiently or you can design a canal which is an
artificial waterway to transport water for irrigation or can be used for ships
and boats or you can design a culvert that will allow water to flow under a
road or trail or some other obstruction elective classes you could take include
coastal hydraulics where you learn about ocean wave propagation submerge
pipelines sea walls to protect human habitation and so on or open channel
hydraulics which is about fluid flow in an open channel as opposed to a closed
channel or pipeline and last is transportation engineering this is about safe
and efficient movement of goods and people these are the engineers who design
streets roads highways railroads public transportation systems and even
airports so maybe this engineer has to look at the kind of demand from a new
development whether it's a new stadium in your city all the way to a new
grocery store in a new location this is going to cause new types of traffic throughout
the area the engineers will try to optimize how the new development impacts
existing traffic they would look at data from other similar places to see what
kind of traffic they get then try to make improvements where possible it could
be simple like adding a bus stop in the nearby area all the way to expanding
the roadway to allow for more traffic they could work on the geometrics of the
roadway this is what radius of curvature does an off-ramp have to be for a car
going 55 miles per hour so the tires won't slip or if they're going up in
incline the driver needs to see far enough ahead of them to stop if there's a
sudden obstacle or went to the cross sections of a freeway need to be for the
lanes and the shoulders to accommodate the amount of traffic that's expected or
let's say a highway interchange is being designed a structural engineer would
make it stable and design the structure itself but the transportation engineer
would determine maybe how many lanes are needed for the interchange based on
traffic or how the merging should happen to maximize safety they make sure that
the layout is designed to maximize traffic flow and safety rather than the
physics of the structure itself often these engineers evaluate potential improvements
to cities in terms of transportation rather than create a totally new design as
an you probably haven't had many new highways put into your city in the last
two years but there's probably been plenty of construction whether it be adding
an express lane or a bike lane etc so they might not create a new bus transportation
system but they may optimize the existing one maybe they take data from how
many people get on the bus how long the bus takes to complete its route how
long people are waiting for the bus and so on to optimize the route the amount
of stops and more your career will also likely involve a good amount of
computer work you might have to create a layout of the new Lane off-ramp bridge
or whatever you're designing on Auto CAD which is a very important software for
civil engineers or you could use software to analyze and simulate traffic you
can actually lay out the roadway of a city and use collected data of traffic
during different times of the day and simulate new additions like you could add
in a stoplight somewhere and do what the new traffic would be like or you can
make a minor change like make a certain stoplight stay green for just a few seconds
longer and see how it affects traffic on those streets and just know this is
not a very mass heavy field in fact it's probably the least math intensive of
the four sub disciplines I've talked about it's more about taking data and
analyzing it even when I talked about the radius of curvature and how fast
someone should be going you won't use the coefficient of friction and do circular
motion physics or anything like that you use even simpler equations to get what
you need now that's not the main sub-disciplines of this major but there are
some final thoughts I want to include if you're watching all this and are more interested
in the artistic aspect of building and structure designs then architecture will
be better for you Architects deal more with the floor plans spatial concerns
and the shape and design of the buildings they have to have an understanding of
structures and physics but not quite as much as a structural engineer they
would hand off their design to the structural engineer who would really make
sure the entire structure could support itself and they would deal with more of
the technical work then if you want to be the one who puts on the hardhat and
does all the hands-on work with the machines and physically builds the
structures then construction will be better for you but then there's also
construction management which you can still get a job in as a civil engineer
construction companies will hire civil engineers because of their technical
background construction is the hands-on part but construction management is
more about guiding the construction putting together schedules budgeting and figuring
out how all the pieces will come together and according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics the average salary and a number of jobs in the United States for
these three majors are all pretty good of course these are just averages as of now
but hopefully this gives you a good idea of what you can expect so if you guys
liked this section don't forget to Like and comments and I'll see you all next
time you
