Abstract

This paper explores a diversity of technologies and IT tools that can serve civil engineering needs and help this sector restore its past glory by retaining a leading edge among peer disciplines. The technologies surveyed herein are those of which we had the privilege to be directly or indirectly exposed to during our last two years as Civil Engineering (CE) undergraduate students in the American University of Beirut (AUB). The targeted audience is the engineering body as a whole (students, faculty, and practitioners attending the 1st FEA Student Conference at AUB), along with high school students, namely engineering candidates.

Please note that the applications/technologies concisely traversed in this paper have been elaborately discussed in the seminar presentation.

While some assume that computer engineering and information technology (IT) are the future and that civil engineering is obsolete, there are many who can touch beyond this and see that such technological advancements, if properly directed, can add a lot to civil engineering, which in turn would proportionally reflect on our quality of life. A guest speaker (Nassif, 2002), in a seminar presentation given at the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, put it bluntly by raising this caution flag (addressing faculty members and students): “It’s up to you guys to revolutionize this sector and instill novel technology into it; it’s by this and this only that you can put it back on the pedestal off which other engineering disciplines have recently had it displaced.” [1] He also commended the transportation sector people for being the civil engineering pioneers to realize and start implementing this.

It is up to the new breed of civil engineers to attend to this and assess the means to and consequent benefits from such a full-fledged utilization of computerization and information technology in conventional areas/methods of civil engineering. While their fellow colleagues develop those high-tech tools, civil engineers’ efforts should lie in knowing how to successfully exploit such tools in every implicative manner. It is only then that a civil engineer achieves both: the satisfaction from subduing IT and computer technology skills, and the obligation towards his profession through applying them to serve numerous civil needs. The following is an exemplary overview of where such utilization is underway, awaiting the energy and enthusiasm of civil engineers to come:

Intelligent Infrastructures and Geographic Information Systems

‘Intelligent infrastructure’ development involves the integration of infrastructure building/modeling and information management using modern computer techniques and graphics technology with advanced database management systems (for maintenance and/or customer billing, for instance). Working with spatially networked facilities and land records systems would highly benefit from a tool like a Geographic Information System (GIS).

GIS have become a popular item on the wish list of many municipalities and water agencies. It would help the planning group perform estimates of future water demands, evaluate the transmission system utilizing these estimates, and specify subsequent system improvements. Then the engineering group can use the GIS in mapping such expansions, since it provides the spatial analysis tools necessary to efficiently assess the important factors (demographic, geographic, and economic) influencing the siting decisions for a wastewater treatment plant, for example. At a later stage, the O&M group can use it to manage work groups at geographically distributed facilities by using the geodatabase to provide work order management, work scheduling, and work history logging on a daily basis. Its use in this domain can even stretch to setting up hydraulic network models whose ‘input data’ is directly derived from the geographic and demographic aspects of the area under study; this is known as ‘coupled modeling’. (Of course, there is a diversity of GIS applications in other civil sectors too; the most pronounced would be those in transportation & traffic engineering.)

Innovative Monitoring and Inspection Methods

A variety of advanced monitoring and inspection methods are being employed nowadays for maintaining countrywide infrastructures. In pipe rehabilitation, for example, mobile robotic systems (CCTV, ultrasonic sensors, stationary & zoom cameras…) are being used for remote inspection, and many ‘trenchless’ renovation techniques are being employed in refurbishing defective pipes, so as to minimize excavation requirements and disruption to surrounding structures and utilities. Real-time monitoring and predictive modeling (to provide reasonable projections of the remaining useful life of a structure before actual failure occurs) of existing infrastructures would help municipalities undergo preventive maintenance and repair/replacement, therefore, minimizing the need for emergency repairs.

In the area of high-performance structures, monitoring gadgets such as stress-sensors installed into bridge girders for assessing vehicular stresses and frequencies, and infrared reflectors/receivers for monitoring scour at bridge foundations, are also being installed; not only for maintenance purposes, but also to serve as a source of input for undergoing research on relevant topics. Similarly, actuated signalization and ITS (Intelligent Transportation Systems) in traffic engineering require real-time monitoring systems (cameras, traffic sensors, etc…) to be able to quantify vehicular demand and characterize traffic patterns. Finally, we need not mention that in the age of the internet, what is recorded in ‘real-time’ becomes also accessible in ‘real-time’ through the luxury of having online databases accessible anytime anywhere, thus adding a whole new dimension to the potential of IT in civil engineering.

The fact that MIT has an ‘Information Technology’ area of concentration only in its Civil and Environmental Engineering Department and not in any other is also worth mentioning. One only needs to skim through its IT program (which is gradually becoming application-oriented and not crude IT), course offerings, and student projects to touch on the magnitude of contribution that IT can have to civil engineering. The proceedings and evolution of the CVEV118/698 course, which Kaysi and Mabsout [2] have formally documented for another conference, also easily attests to this ever-escalating concern and success of senior students in applying freshly acquired IT skills and computer methods to conventional civil-related problems.

Finally, a distinctive line should be drawn between the two specialty areas to help steer the civil engineer’s IT pursuits in a way that serves the civil profession without him/her mistakenly wandering out of it. After all, such novel technologies are not but an interface between the two same old bodies of information: (1) the civil engineer and his wide-ranging knowledge, and (2) the diversity of civil ‘duties’ manifested in facilities to erect, problems to tackle, etc… As those two bodies stretch in scope, the need for the interface (engineers’ tools in this context) to evolve arises. However, the newer the interface or tool the more tempting it gets, and by getting over occupied with the ‘tool’ we, as engineers, risk losing perspective on the central goal this tool was originally employed to serve. Heim said: “The deepest peril of the interface is that we may lose touch with our inner states.” – where the ‘inner state’, in this case, translates into our commitment as civil engineers to enhance the quality of life; we do not want to lose touch with that.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to acknowledge Dr. Mounir Mabsout for his unowed encouragement and support.

REFERENCES

[1] Nassif, H., "Instrumentation, Condition Monitoring, and Evaluation of Bridges", Weekly CEE Seminar Series, FEA, AUB, Beirut, Lebanon, January 10, 2002.

[2] Kaysi, I. and Mabsout, M., "Computing in Civil Engineering Education: Dynamics of Change", Proceedings of The 9th International Conference on Computing in Civil and Building Engineering (ICCCBE-IX), Taipei, Taiwan, April 3-5, 2002