Nature of the Construction Industry

 

Houses, apartments, factories, offices, schools, roads, and bridges are only some of the products of the construction industry. This industry’s activities include work on new structures as well as additions, alterations, and repairs to existing ones. The construction industry is divided into three major segments. Construction of buildings contractors, or general contractors, builds residential, industrial, commercial, and other buildings. Heavy and civil engineering construction contractors build sewers, roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, and other projects. Specialty trade contractors are engaged in specialized activities such as carpentry, painting, plumbing, and electrical work.

Construction usually is done or coordinated by general contractors, who specialize in one type of construction such as residential or commercial building. They take full responsibility for the complete job, except for specified portions of the work that may be omitted from the general contract. Although general contractors may do a portion of the work with their own crews, they often subcontract most of the work to heavy construction or specialty trade contractors.

Specialty trade contractors usually do the work of only one trade, such as painting, carpentry, or electrical work, or of two or more closely related trades, such as plumbing and heating. Beyond fitting their work to that of the other trades, specialty trade contractors have no responsibility for the structure as a whole. They obtain orders for their work from general contractors, architects, or property owners. Repair work is usually done on direct order from owners, occupants, architects, or rental agents.

 

15. Scan through the text and be ready to summarize it:

 

A civil engineering degree prepares you for work in the construction industry as well as in the business, management and financial sectors.

Job options of a civil engineer: Building control surveyor; Consulting civil engineer; Contracting civil engineer; Site engineer; Structural engineer; Water engineer.

Jobs where the speciality of a civil engineer would be useful include: Building services engineer; Engineering geologist; Environmental consultant; Patent attorney; Quantity surveyor.

Remember that many employers accept applications from graduates with any degree subject, so don't restrict your thinking to the jobs listed here. Securing some kind of work experience is crucial. Employers place great importance on experience, and it will also give you an insight in the working practices of an engineering firm.

If your course does not include an industrial placement, look for relevant summer work experience and placements. Any kind of role in a construction or civil engineering setting will allow you to build your understanding of issues related to the planning and execution of projects. Use this experience to expand your knowledge and to develop contacts and network.

Casual, hands-on construction work and administrative jobs may be available, but many employers offer structured work experience opportunities.

Civil and structural engineers work in a range of sectors, particularly the construction sector, on buildings of all kinds, transport and communications infrastructure. This includes bridges, roads, tunnels, canals and other large structures. They also work for employers involved in the production, storage and distribution of electricity, gas and water.

Civil engineers are employed by a range of contractors and consultancies and also work in-house for a variety of national and multinational organizations. There are many opportunities in the public sector, with local authorities, government departments and environmental organizations, where engineers are often involved in setting project specifications and drafting tender documents.

Civil engineers are in demand for their technical and subject-specific knowledge and understanding. With a sound grasp of science, mathematics and technology, you can design, create and build structures efficiently, making best use of available resources and techniques. Through realistic construction-based group projects, you gain practical experience of applying your engineering judgement and working successfully with others.

The skills gained by studying civil engineering are also sought after by employers in many other job areas. These include a creative approach to problem-solving, critical thinking and the ability to interpret data, numeracy, IT and communication skills, analytical and decision-making abilities, and an awareness of ethical issues.

Most new graduates who enter professional training with a civil engineering company continue to study part time while working in order to achieve professional standards to become either chartered (CEng) or incorporated (IEng) engineers.

Civil engineering courses at postgraduate level allow students to develop specialist knowledge in a particular area, such as water management, earthquake engineering, maritime civil engineering, environmental engineering and a range of other general and specific options. It is possible to carry out research through an MRes, MPhil or PhD, or to do a taught Masters course in these areas.

More than half of civil engineering graduates in employment in the UK are working as civil engineers six months after graduating.

Almost 14% of civil engineering graduates go on to further study or combine further study and work, often undertaking research into an area of particular interest from their undergraduate degree.

 

16. Read and translate the article from the journal Construction and Building Materials:

 

by Steven D. Palkovic, Dieter B. Brommer,

Kunal Kupwade-Patil, Admir Masic,

Markus J. Buehler, Oral Büyüköztürk

 

Researchers at MIT are seeking to redesign concrete - the most widely used human-made material in the world - by following nature's blueprints. In a paper published online in the journal Construction and Building Materials, the team contrasts cement paste - concrete's binding ingredient - with the structure and properties of natural materials such as bones, shells, and deep-sea sponges.

As the researchers observed, these biological materials are exceptionally strong and durable, thanks in part to their precise assembly of structures at multiple length scales, from the molecular to the macro, or visible, level. From their observations, the team, led by Oral Buyukozturk, a professor in MIT's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), proposed a new bioinspired, "bottom-up" approach for designing cement paste.

"These materials are assembled in a fascinating fashion, with simple constituents arranging in complex geometric configurations that are beautiful to observe," Buyukozturk says. "We want to see what kinds of micromechanisms exist within them that provide such superior properties, and how we can adopt a similar building-block-based approach for concrete." Ultimately, the team hopes to identify materials in nature that may be used as sustainable and longer-lasting alternatives to Portland cement, which requires a huge amount of energy to manufacture.

"If we can replace cement, partially or totally, with some other materials that may be readily and amply available in nature, we can meet our objectives for sustainability," Buyukozturk says.

Co-authors on the paper include lead author and graduate student Steven Palkovic, graduate student Dieter Brommer, research scientist Kunal Kupwade-Patil, CEE assistant professor Admir Masic, and CEE department head Markus Buehler, the McAfee Professor of Engineering.

"The merger of theory, computation, new synthesis, and characterization methods have enabled a paradigm shift that will likely change the way we produce this ubiquitous material, forever," Buehler says. "It could lead to more durable roads, bridges, structures, reduce the carbon and energy footprint, and even enable us to sequester carbon dioxide as the material is made. Implementing nanotechnology in concrete is one powerful example [of how] to scale up the power of nanoscience to solve grand engineering challenges."

From molecules to bridges. Today's concrete is a random assemblage of crushed rocks and stones, bound together by a cement paste. Concrete's strength and durability depends partly on its internal structure and configuration of pores. For example, the more porous the material, the more vulnerable it is to cracking. However, there are no techniques available to precisely control concrete's internal structure and overall properties.

"It's mostly guesswork," Buyukozturk says. "We want to change the culture and start controlling the material at the mesoscale."

As Buyukozturk describes it, the "mesoscale" represents the connection between microscale structures and macroscale properties. For instance, how does cement's microscopic arrangement affect the overall strength and durability of a tall building or a long bridge? Understanding this connection would help engineers identify features at various length scales that would improve concrete's overall performance.

"We're dealing with molecules on the one hand, and building a structure that's on the order of kilometers in length on the other," Buyukozturk says. "How do we connect the information we develop at the very small scale, to the information at the large scale? This is the riddle."

Building from the bottom, up. To start to understand this connection, he and his colleagues looked to biological materials such as bone, deep sea sponges, and nacre (an inner shell layer of mollusks), which have all been studied extensively for their mechanical and microscopic properties. They looked through the scientific literature for information on each biomaterial, and compared their structures and behavior, at the nano-, micro-, and macroscales, with that of cement paste.

They looked for connections between a material's structure and its mechanical properties. For instance, the researchers found that a deep sea sponge's onion-like structure of silica layers provides a mechanism for preventing cracks. Nacre has a "brick-and-mortar" arrangement of minerals that generates a strong bond between the mineral layers, making the material extremely tough.

"In this context, there is a wide range of multiscale characterization and computational modeling techniques that are well established for studying the complexities of biological and biomimetic materials, which can be easily translated into the cement community," says Masic.

Applying the information they learned from investigating biological materials, as well as knowledge they gathered on existing cement paste design tools, the team developed a general, bioinspired framework, or methodology, for engineers to design cement, "from the bottom up."

The framework is essentially a set of guidelines that engineers can follow, in order to determine how certain additives or ingredients of interest will impact cement's overall strength and durability. For instance, in a related line of research, Buyukozturk is looking into volcanic ash as a cement additive or substitute. To see whether volcanic ash would improve cement paste's properties, engineers, following the group's framework, would first use existing experimental techniques, such as nuclear magnetic resonance, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction to characterize volcanic ash's solid and pore configurations over time.

Researchers could then plug these measurements into models that simulate concrete's long-term evolution, to identify mesoscale relationships between, say, the properties of volcanic ash and the material's contribution to the strength and durability of an ash-containing concrete bridge. These simulations can then be validated with conventional compression and nanoindentation experiments, to test actual samples of volcanic ash-based concrete. Ultimately, the researchers hope the framework will help engineers identify ingredients that are structured and evolve in a way, similar to biomaterials, that may improve concrete's performance and longevity.

"Hopefully this will lead us to some sort of recipe for more sustainable concrete," Buyukozturk says. "Typically, buildings and bridges are given a certain design life. Can we extend that design life maybe twice or three times? That's what we aim for. Our framework puts it all on paper, in a very concrete way, for engineers to use."

This research was supported in part by the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Sciences through the Kuwait-MIT Center for Natural Resources and the Environment, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and Argonne National Laboratory.

 

by Steven D. Palkovic, Dieter B. Brommer, Kunal Kupwade-Patil, Admir Masic,

Markus J. Buehler, Oral Büyüköztürk.

Roadmap across the mesoscale for durable and sustainable cement paste –

A bioinspired approach.

Construction and Building Materials, 2016; 115: 13.

 

17. Give written translation of the information below:

 

Civil engineering is the improvement of civil society through the application of scientific knowledge. Civil requirements in today’s society are focused on meeting basic human needs and assisting people in their daily lives. These needs are met by improving infrastructure and common utilities.

Civil Engineers understand the environment and how they can use it safely and smartly to improve our quality of life. Environmental consideration ensures that all structures and utilities they implement are safe, economical and environmentally-sound. Education and skills are focused on understanding the environment and its natural elements.

Coupled with expertise in construction techniques and design skills allows civil engineers to work on massive skyscrapers and bridges. The daily activities of a civil engineer vary according to the industry they settle into. The most common duties include design of structural elements, supervision of material extraction and general project management. Generally they work as part of large teams and will be sent out ‘on site’ to supervise and monitor the progress of a project.

As the civil world is so diverse, civil engineers have the most varied career options out of all the major disciplines. They work on both the small and large scale of construction and infrastructure. Opportunities exist for some to start their own business and contract their services to private developers for large projects.