The Brilliance of Modern Civil Engineering

Modern Civil Engineering

Have you ever wondered how the world’s tallest buildings, such as the Burj Khalifa, the Shanghai Tower, the Kingdom Clock Tower, and Lotte World Tower, managed to stand strong through the years despite being freakishly tall? How about the Palm Islands and the Three Gorges Dam — have you ever wondered how these impressive projects were made into reality? It’s all because of the brilliance of modern day engineering.

Ever since the ancient times, innovative engineering solutions have been shaping the world we now know today, and even structures that are centuries or decades old are still standing strong despite the tests of time and nature. From roads, bridges and railways, to sewerage systems, canals, and dams, to houses and buildings — civil engineering plays a major role to the overall success and prosperity of these man made structures and infrastructures. On top of everything, civil engineering is the broadest and oldest of all branches in engineering.

The presence of civil engineering’s brilliance can be felt in a global scale. Almost every country in this world has had a civil engineering project completed on it, from ‘First World’ countries such as Canada and the United States of America, to impoverished nations like Afghanistan, Haiti, and Tanzania. Even locally here in Australia you can see the ingenuity of Australian civil engineers and their successful projects. You can even enlist the services of Wollongong engineering consultants so you can see for yourself how they come up with solutions for simple or complex problems.

Modern Civil Engineering

Civil engineering primarily deals with the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of public works, fixed structures, industrial projects, and even residential homes. The field of civil engineering is so broad that it’s conventionally divided into a number of sub-disciplines, such as surveying, geotechnical engineering, environmental engineering, construction engineering, coastal engineering, and structural engineering.

Each sub-discipline within civil engineering covers a specific area in great detail and allows engineers specializing under it to deliver a project with the highest quality. One such example is structural engineering, a sub-discipline that is primarily concerned with the structural design and analysis of towers, bridges, overpasses, buildings, and so much more, because structural engineers are required to have a deep level of understanding of the loads, forces and stresses in a structure so they can come up with a design that allows a particular structure to withstand both internal and external factors.

While there are civil engineers that specialise in at least one sub-discipline, there are also general civil engineers equipped with a good level of understanding on multiple areas. Traditionally, engineers from civil engineering companies work together with land surveyors and specialised engineers on a variety of projects, including communications supply, design grading, and sewer service, among others. But sometimes general civil engineers are also called site engineers because they mostly spend their time on project sites where their skills and expertise are much needed.

The brilliance of modern civil engineering is one of the best things that we human beings have the luxury of enjoying in this world. Because without the skills and contributions of civil engineers, we would be traversing unsafe roads, entering shaky buildings, dealing with faulty telecommunications, suffering heavy traffic, walking by dangerous retaining walls, and so on. Apart from that, we would be deprived of witnessing the birth of civil engineering marvels such as the Burj Khalifa and the Palm Islands.