Introduction to Civil Engineering What is a Civil

Introduction to Civil Engineering

What is a Civil Engineer? • Civil engineering deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment that we all share. • What are some common, shared spaces that make up Lincoln?

What is infrastructure? • It is defined as the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions • Examples include: • Buildings, bridges and other structures • Highways • Dams and levees • Water treatment plants, waste disposal • This infrastructure must be safe, functional, and economically sound

Why We Need Civil Engineers • Make sure our human habitat is livable • Make sure we use resources wisely – Sustainable development • Help maintain our competitiveness in the global economy – Increase productivity

Today we will focus on: Structural Engineering! (a sub-discipline of Civil Engineering)

Structural Engineers: • Assemble structural components to withstand a load • Common structures: – Buildings – Towers – Bridges – Tunnels – Silos

What is a tower? • Arch Bridges A structure that is taller than it is wide, often by a significant margin. Height Highway 34 bridge, north of Plattsmouth, NE Width Distinct from buildings, because these are not made to be inhabited.

What are towers used for? . . . function (Mueller Tower at UNL Campus). . . function (Water Tower, Carmel Indiana)

What are towers used for? • . . . function Truss Bridges (Telecommunication Towers In India) Can you think of more examples of functional towers?

Tower uses: aesthetic Show (Space Needle, Seattle WA) Show/function: The leaning tower of Pisa, Italy, is a freestanding bell tower that leans at an angle of 3. 99 degrees

Design challenges: Support– towers taper as they go up, to reduce the amount of materials that need to be supported. Buckling—towers need to have stiff sides to avoid breaking under loads, especially due to wind. Dynamic—towers must also have design elements to cope with other movement, such as seismic disturbances. Often this means dampers on joints.

Activity: Tennis Ball Towers Goal: To build a free-standing paper tower that can support a tennis ball! Materials: • Paper: • 20 sheets regular, • 4 sheets cardstock • Tape: 3 feet • Tennis ball Constraints: • Must be free standing • No other building materials allowed • You may not cut your paper. Folding and tearing is acceptable, however. The group with the tallest tower wins the challenge!

ANY QUESTIONS?