Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
blurred, with many engineers being members of both institutions, and some designers
being members of the Institution of Civil Engineers only.
The specialisation of designers is also recognised in many other countries, where
engineering graduates wishing to take responsibility for the design of structures have
to pass an additional examination some years after graduation, giving them a title such
as Professional Engineer.
The distinction between general civil engineers and designers remains inadequately
recognised by the profession, by the universities and by society. Being a designer is
almost a separate profession from that of general civil engineer. If one were to imagine
the spectrum of skills required in the building industry, extending at one end from
an architect and at the other to a director of a civil engineering contracting fi rm, the
bridge designer would cover a wide range, but his centre of gravity should be closer to
the architect than to the contractor.
1.5 Qualities required by a bridge designer
Before the age of enlightenment engineers/architects built many splendid structures,
soaring cathedrals, slender stone towers and daring arch bridges without knowledge
of modern theory of structures or of analytical soil mechanics. Then in the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, despite the primitive state of mathematics and structural
theory, engineers built huge numbers of structures associated with the development
of the canals, roads and railways, some of which were daring and dramatic, many of
which have survived to the present day.
It is astonishing how little curiosity is shown by engineers and teachers of engineering
about this huge body of successful structures which were built without the benefi ts of
most of what is considered essential engineering training
.
It should make us question
what are the basic skills required for a bridge designer.
The designer of engineering structures requires an understanding of how structures
work and how they are to be built, an appreciation of how they look, and the commu-
nication skills required to describe his ideas to others. This understanding develops
gradually, starting with his technical education and continuing with the feedback from
completed projects, snippets of information read or overheard, back-of-the-envelope
doodles or bath-time mental calculations. Sometimes, some item of information acts as
the missing piece of a puzzle, suddenly illuminating an issue that was previously only
partly understood. This process goes on throughout a career, and a creative engineer
becomes progressively more creative until his faculties begin to decline. Clearly, some
people are more gifted than others in this domain, and have an intuitive understanding
of structures. Such natural engineers learn more quickly than others less talented, and
make better use of their experience.
A designer's appreciation of beauty depends in part on his talent and in part on his
training and experience. In the UK, prospective engineers concentrate on mathematics
and science from the age of 16, and the appreciation and creation of beauty are
absent from the majority of engineering courses. Mathematics and the other technical
disciplines such as theory of structures and the properties of materials are the most
tangible of the skills required by engineers, and thus are the ones that are given priority
in their education. However they have become virtually the only skills that are taught,
whereas the critical criterion that determines whether a structure will rise above the
