![]() The first private college teaching the profession in the United States was Norwich University, founded by Captain Alden Partridge in 1819, although the first degree in civil engineering awarded in the United States came from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1835. The first institution for the teaching of civil engineering, the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, was established in France in 1747, soon followed by similar institutions in other European nations. In the United States, the American Society for Civil Engineers (ASCE) was founded in 1852. “the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man, as the means of production and of traffic in states, both for external and internal trade, as applied in the construction of roads, bridges, aqueducts, canals, river navigation and docks for internal intercourse and exchange, and in the construction of ports, harbours, moles, breakwaters and lighthouses, and in the art of navigation by artificial power for the purposes of commerce, and in the construction and application of machinery, and in the drainage of cities and towns.” The charter defined civil engineering as: This was, however, more of a social society and was soon superseded by the Institution of Civil Engineers, which was formed in London in 1818 and received a Royal Charter in 1828, which formally recognised civil engineering as a profession. The first self-proclaimed professional civil engineer was John Smeaton, who created the Smeatonian Society of Civil Engineers in 1771 with colleagues who would meet informally over dinner. The ancient and medieval periods saw most construction and design carried out by artisans like carpenters and stonemasons, with the knowledge held by guilds, and it wasn’t until the 18th century that the term ‘civil engineering’ was first used to describe engineering for civilian, rather than military, purposes. However, the word ‘engineer’ was still being used interchangeably with ‘architect’ to describe the profession. This also made trading transport more important, with goods having to be moved to and from these new settlements with the development of sailing and the wheel.Įarly engineering projects included the pyramids in Egypt, the Parthenon in Ancient Greece, the Great Wall of China, and the many civil structures built across the Roman Empire, among others spread across the world including in Mexico and Sri Lanka. To better understand civil engineering today, it is worth taking a quick look at how it developed into a profession over the years… ContentsĬlick the below to skip to the section in the guide:Ĭivil Engineering History Ancient EngineeringĮngineering, in some form or other, has always played a part in human life, but the earliest signs of civil engineering date to between 40 BC.īeginning in Ancient Egypt (along the Nile Valley in Northeast Africa), among the Indus Valley Civilisation (spanning northeast Afghanistan, across much of Pakistan and into western and northwest India), and in Mesopotamia (along the Tigris-Euphrates river system in modern Iraq), ancient civil engineering began as people began to abandon a nomadic existence and built shelters. ![]() Scientific principles, such as those developed by the ancient Greek Archimedes of Syracuse, were applied as they were understood, helping to drive engineering forward, which continues to this day with new innovations and research. The broad nature and long history of civil engineering means that its own growth as a discipline is closely associated to the development of human knowledge in areas including physics, mathematics, structures and construction, geography, geology, hydrology, environmental and materials sciences, mechanics, and more. As a result, civil engineering is a broad discipline that is broken down into several sub-disciplines. This includes infrastructure such as airports, bridges, buildings, canals, dams, pipelines, power plants, railways, roads, sewage systems, and more.Ĭivil engineering projects can come through the public sector, from government agencies, or through the private sector, and can be either large or small in scale, with civil engineers working in fields such as planning, budgeting, project and asset management, research, analysis, and more.Ĭivil engineering is the second-oldest engineering discipline, after military engineering, having been created to differentiate civilian from military engineering. National Structural Integrity Research CentreĬivil engineering is the application of physical and scientific principles for the design, development and maintenance of both the constructed and the naturally built environment.Structural Integrity Research Foundation.
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