Civil engineering is a broad professional engineering discipline that deals with designing, constructing, and maintaining infrastructure and structures in the built environment. Civil engineers work on projects like roads, bridges, buildings, dams, airports, and more. The term "civil engineering" was originally used to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering. Civil engineering requires the application of scientific principles and knowledge of materials, structures, and research.
Civil engineering is a broad professional engineering discipline that deals with designing, constructing, and maintaining infrastructure and structures in the built environment. Civil engineers work on projects like roads, bridges, buildings, dams, airports, and more. The term "civil engineering" was originally used to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering. Civil engineering requires the application of scientific principles and knowledge of materials, structures, and research.
Civil engineering is a broad professional engineering discipline that deals with designing, constructing, and maintaining infrastructure and structures in the built environment. Civil engineers work on projects like roads, bridges, buildings, dams, airports, and more. The term "civil engineering" was originally used to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering. Civil engineering requires the application of scientific principles and knowledge of materials, structures, and research.
Civil engineering is a broad professional engineering discipline that deals with designing, constructing, and maintaining infrastructure and structures in the built environment. Civil engineers work on projects like roads, bridges, buildings, dams, airports, and more. The term "civil engineering" was originally used to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering. Civil engineering requires the application of scientific principles and knowledge of materials, structures, and research.
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the
design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads, bridges, canals, dams, airports, sewerage systems, pipelines, structural components of buildings, and railways
Civil engineers design, construct, maintain and improve the
physical environment, including; bridges, tunnels, roads, railways, canals, dams, buildings, flood and coastal defences, airports and other large structures. The term ‘civil’ engineer was originally coined to distinguish it from military engineering.
Civil engineering is a broad profession that encompasses a range of subjects
Whilst some of these specialisms may be considered sub-disciplines of civil
engineering, subjects such as structural engineering (which focuses on the design, assessment and inspection of structures to ensure that they are efficient and stable) may now be considered engineering disciplines in their own right.
In 2007, the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Council adopted the
following definition of civil engineering, ‘Civil Engineering is a vital art, working with the great sources of power in nature for the wealth and well- being of the whole of society. Its essential feature is the exercise of imagination to engineer the products and processes, and develop the people needed to create and maintain a sustainable natural and built environment.
It requires a broad understanding of scientific principles,
a knowledge of materials and the art of analysis and synthesis. It also requires research, team working, leadership and business skills. A civil engineer is one who practises all or part of this art.' Civil engineers will normally begin the process of qualification by taking a three-year BSc or Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) degree or a four-year Masters (MEng) degree in civil engineering. Alternatively, practicing technicians can take a BTEC HNC/HND or foundation degree in civil engineering.
This is likely to be followed by entering a company's graduate training
scheme for one or two years and joining a professional body, such as the Institution of Civil Engineers to allow progress towards incorporated or chartered status. Incorporated engineers will tend to work on the day-to- day management of projects whilst chartered engineers may have a more strategic role.
Civil engineering is traditionally broken into a number of sub-disciplines. It
is considered the second-oldest engineering discipline after military engineering and it is defined to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering.[4] Civil engineering takes place in the public sector from municipal through to national governments, and in the private sector from individual homeowners through to international companies.
Civil engineering as a discipline
Civil engineering is the application of physical and scientific principles for solving the problems of society, and its history is intricately linked to advances in the understanding of physics and mathematics throughout history. Because civil engineering is a wide-ranging profession, including several specialized sub-disciplines, its history is linked to knowledge of structures, materials science, geography, geology, soils, hydrology, environment, mechanics and other fields. 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.