Civil engineers work with a wide variety of problems associated with the infrastructure and the daily service needs of society. They design and supervise the construction of bridges, highways, railroads, dams, buildings, airports, harbors, flood control systems, and a vast array of projects that affect the quality of life for millions of people worldwide. They are also planning computer-controlled traffic systems, intelligent highways, and structures and habitats in space and on the moon. Civil engineers today are involved in protecting the environment, urban development, and designing methods and facilities to cope with many of our planet’s most serious technical problems.
AREA OF EMPHASIS AT DELAWARE
The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering conducts an active research program which spans the full range of activities which represent the civil engineering profession. The following are examples of ongoing research efforts within the Department: Structural and Geotechnical Engineering. This research includes nonlinear dynamic analysis of building frameworks and steel structures, applications of composite materials to civil engineering structures, development of efficient models for geomaterials, behavior of composite or reinforced soil structures to seismic loadings, bearing capacity of floating ice plates, analysis and design of railway tracks, analytical modeling of concrete pavements for airports and highways, thermal buckling of concrete pavements, threedimensional stability analysis of inhomogeneous slopes, design of inflated fabric-reinforced concrete structures, and random vibration of arch dam reservoirs during earthquakes. Ocean Engineering. Shoreline erosion, pollution of estuaries, and the high cost of constructing and maintaining channels and harbors are all dilemmas which demand research. The Center for Applied Coastal Research within the Department provides a focus for the efforts to solve the critical problems of our seas, shorelines, and offshore areas. Research includes studies of nearshore circulation and offshore breakwaters, computer modeling of the water wave spectrum, wave breaking and the generation of infragravity waves such as surf beat and edge waves. These phenomena all play a central role in the sediment transport in surf zones on natural beaches, wave runup on steep slopes and on the rough slopes of breakwaters and revetments, and the transport and fate of spilled oil are also among the research topics of the faculty. Transportation Engineering. This effort includes evaluation of multi-lane design alternatives for improving suburban highways, application of fuzzy set and artificial intelligence to transportation problems, an integrated traffic monitoring system for the State of Delaware, evaluation of railhighway crossing safety programs, and pavement design optimization with reinforced roller-compacted concrete. Research is also conducted in cooperation with the Delaware Transportation Institute, a research and technology transfer endeavor between the University of Delaware and the Delaware Department of Transportation. Environmental Engineering. This problem is addressed in three ways: clean-up of environmental problems created in the past, treatment of current wastes, and modification of existing practices to avoid further deterioration of the environment. Research includes sediment and soil quality standards, remediation of heavy metal contamination, fate of chemical warfare agents, biological sludge treatment and toxic waste biodegradation, analysis of the chemical and biological processes in landfills, photocatalytic oxidation of organic wastes, and treatment of contaminated aquifers.
