From the beginning of time when men fought for their survival two things were of utmost importance for them-Food and shelter. With this necessity of shelter there developed a new branch of engineering as we call today Civil engineering. This branch began as a basic necessity grew as an art as the time flew by, blended with science and technology with our expanding horizon of knowledge and evolved as a core branch of engineering. Civil engineering is the tool which captures our imaginations and turns dreams into reality to make our world safer, more comfortable and more beautiful as the days pass by.
Civil engineering can be dated to the first time someone placed a roof over his or her head or laid a tree trunk across a river to make it easier to get across. The built environment encompasses much of what defines modern civilization.
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What do Civil engineers do???
Civil engineering is the core discipline of engineering having its application in almost every other branch of science and engineering. When we talk about structure the first thing that comes into our mind is buildings and bridges, the magnificent creation of Structural engineers. Roads, Railroads, Airports, Subway systems, Traffic flow and control system are designed by Transportation engineer another major sub-discipline of Civil engineering. Every time you open a water faucet, you expect water to come out, without thinking that civil engineers made it possible. All the water supply and disposal systems are designed by Civil engineers. New York City has one of the most impressive water supply systems in the world accounting for billions of gallons of water each day. The old Civil engineering discipline of sanitary engineering has evolved into modern environmental engineering of such significance that most academic departments have changed their names to Civil and Environmental engineering.
There are many applications of Civil engineering in other discipline also. You can find Civil engineers employed in Aerospace industry designing jetliners and space stations. They are also a key contributor of what we today know as Global positioning system and satellite imaging.
They work in Automobile industry perfecting the load-carrying capacity of a chassis and improving the crashworthiness of bumpers and doors.
Do you ever wonder how do you get 24X7 electricity to carry out your daily needs ? Well all thanks to the Civil engineers for designing all that magnificent dams, power plants and Reactors.
They can be found in any and all of the industry wherever constructed facility is required.
Civil engineering is an exciting profession because at the end of the day you can see the results of your work, whether this is a completed bridge, a high-rise building, a subway station, or a hydroelectric dam.
2. Sub Disciplines of Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a wide field with number of sub disciplines engrossed in it. Civil engineering is concerned with the overall interface of human created fixed projects with the greater world.
Some of the basic sub-disciplines of Civil engineering are –
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Materials science and Engineering
One of the major aspects of Civil engineering is materials science. Material engineering deals with ceramics such as concrete, mix asphalt concrete, strong metals such as aluminum and steel, and polymers such as polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and carbon fibers. With significant media attention focused on nanoscience and nanotechnology in recent years, materials science has been propelled to the forefront at many universities. It is also an important part of forensic engineering and failure analysis. Materials science also deals with fundamental properties and characteristics of materials.
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Coastal Engineering
Coastal engineering is concerned with managing coastal areas. In some jurisdictions the terms sea defense and coastal protection are used to mean, respectively, defense against flooding and erosion.
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Construction Engineering
Construction engineering involves planning and execution of the designs from transportation, site development, hydraulic, environmental, structural and Geotechnical engineers.
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Earthquake Engineering
Earthquake engineering covers ability of various structures to withstand hazardous earthquake exposures at the sites of their particular location.
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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.
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Geotechnical Engineering
Geotechnical engineering is an area of civil engineering concerned with the rock and soil that support civil engineering systems. 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.
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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.
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Structural Engineering
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.
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Surveying and Remote Sensing
Surveying is the process by which a surveyor measures certain dimensions that generally occur on the surface of the Earth. Surveying equipment, such as levels and theodolites, are used for accurate measurement of angular deviation, horizontal, vertical and slope distances.
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Transportation Engineering
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.
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Municipal or Urban Engineering
Municipal engineering is concerned with municipal infrastructure. This involves specifying, designing, constructing, and maintaining streets, sidewalks, water supply networks, sewers, street lighting, municipal solid waste management and disposal, storage depots for various bulk materials used for maintenance and public works (salt, sand, etc.), public parks and bicycle paths.
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Offshore Structures and Control Engineering
Control engineering or control systems engineering is the branch of Civil Engineering discipline that applies control theory to design systems with desired behaviors. The practice uses sensors to measure the output performance of the device being controlled (often a vehicle) and those measurements can be used to give feedback to the input actuators that can make corrections toward desired performance.
3. Research Fields in Civil engineering
A lot of public and private funded projects are going on in Civil engineering with full emphasis on real life problems and their solutions.
Some of the major research topics of extensive research are Seismic Hazard Estimation and Microzonation of Indian Cities, Engineering Modeling of Earthquake Source, Seismic Site Characterization, Pre and Post Liquefaction Behavior of Soils, Earthquake Load Modeling Using Critical Excitation Method, Structural Vibration Control, Seismic Response of Reinforced Soil Retaining Walls, Shock Table Studies for Earthquake Resistant Design of Masonry Buildings, Inelastic Seismic Analysis of R C Framed Structures, Studies on Fiber of Railway Bridges, Reliability Based Design of Foundations and Retaining Walls, Spatial Variability of In-situ Soil Properties, Structural Seismic Safety and Fragility Analyses of Nuclear Power Plant Structures, Design of Efficient Surface Aerators for Waste Water Treatment, Modeling Contaminant Transport in Ground Water and Vadoze Zone, Fuzzy-Stochastic Modeling for Water Quality Control in Streams, Water Distribution Network, Electrokinetic Decontamination of Soils, Re-Use of Hazardous Wastes in Civil Engineering Applications, Characterization of Bentonites as Buffer Material for Deep Geological Repository, Defluoridation of Ground Water, Pollution Induced Heave in Soils, Role of Osmotic Suction in Volume Change Behaviour of Expansive Clays, Geochemistry of fluoride rich groundwater, Modeling of solute transport in heterogeneous porous media, Assessing Impacts of Climate Change On Rainfall And Streamflows Using Downscaling Models Metropolitan Areas, Development of a Simultaneous Approach for Integrated Mass Transit Planning, Air Travel Demand Modeling for Indian Cities, Development of a Web-based Transit Passenger Information System (PIS) Design, Effect of Driver Characteristics and Behavior on Road Safety and Mobility
4. How to be a Civil engineer?
To be a Civil engineer you have two options either a diploma or a degree. While B.E./B.Tech. Will take four years of education, diploma will take three years. If you wish, you can also pursue higher education and complete a master’s course with a specialization. If you want to pursue a diploma, then you have to complete class 10th with at least 50% aggregate marks. For degree you have to take the test of the respective college or university and complete your intermediate with minimum of 60% marks with Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics.
The degree course will comprise eight semesters. Various subjects like Math, Chemistry, Physics, Graphics, Engineering Math, Strength of Materials, Electrical Systems, Electronics, Structural Analysis, Geotechnical Engineering, Instrumentation, Computer Programming and many more are imparted in the four-year course.
Some of the top colleges offering degree courses in Civil engineering in India are –
- IIT Bombay
- IIT Delhi
- IIT Kanpur
- IIT Kharagpur
- IIT Madras
- IIT Roorkee
- BITS Pilani
- IIT-BHU Varansi
- NIT Warangal
- Delhi Technical University Delhi
- Indian Institute of Sciences Bangalore
Some of the best university offering Degree in Civil Engineering in the world are–
- Massachusetts Institute of technology
- University of Cambridge
- National University of Singapore
- University of California
- Delft University of technology
- Imperial College London
- Stanford University
- Tsinghua University
- The University of Hong Kong
- The University of Tokyo
5.Scope and career in Civil engineering
As per the recent statistics, around 30% of nation’s working population depends on construction and its allied activities for their livelihood. Construction is the 2nd largest economic activity in the country next to agriculture. According to 12th five year plan(2012-2017)the total investment in infrastructure is estimated to be Rs 55.7 lakh crores. Which is expected to increase by 30% for the next plan. According to the recent survey by Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors by 2020 there will be need of about 400,000 qualified civil engineers in India But today only 65,000 professionals are available. There is going to be a huge demand of Civil engineers in near future. According to the recent report of Nasscomm there is going to be a heavy surge in Civil engineering jobs in future.
The scope for Government jobs is also very wide in Civil engineering. Civil engineers have the highest seats in any government job be it state or Central at lucrative packages and loads of other incentives and facilities.
There is also a huge demand of Indian Civil professionals in Middle East, Singapore, China, United States and Europe.
Career Growth Graph Civil Engineering
6.Salary and Package of Civil Engineers
Salary and package of Civil engineers depends upon a number of factors like the size of the company you work in, the qualification you have, the experience, location of work, the size of the project, etc. Experience strongly influences pay for this job. A Civil Engineer earns an average basic salary of Rs 352,763 per year.
There are several requirements for optimum career growth of in Civil engineering. Skills That Affect Civil Engineer Salaries are-
- Project Management
- Engineering Design
- Microsoft Project
- Microsoft Excel
- Autodesk AutoCAD
- StaadPro
- Autodesk Revit Architecture
- Knowledge of Programming Language
Salary Comparisons of Core engineering designations
7.Top ten Civil Engineering Companies in India
- Gammon India
- Larsen & turbo ltd
- Punj Llyod Group
- Jaiprakash Associates
- Lanco Infratech Limited
- GMR Group
- NHPC India
- Hindustan Construction Company
- WAPCOS India
So begin your journey to a new field of beautification and satisfaction. It’s not going to be a cake walk but the career opportunities will always be open to you. If you are a quality Civil engineer then you will not be unemployed for even a single day of your life. And the day you hit up a good startup in Civil engineering you are going to be a pioneer in India.
This is the best time to enter the industry because it is on the verge of a boom. The best part is you get to see your creation. Job satisfaction and vibrant future is the synonyms of Civil engineering.
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