College of Engineering

Courses

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Civil engineering is one of the three largest fields of engineering. It traditionally has been concerned with infrastructure facilities that are both large in scale and essential to modern life. Civil and environmental engineering projects include transportation systems and their components, such as bridges, highways, public transit systems, railways, harbors, airports, seaports, and even spaceports; large-scale structures and office buildings that provide enclosed working and living space; environmental and hydraulic systems that provide clean water and air, including filtration plants and distribution systems for municipal and industrial water supplies, wastewater treatment plants, dams, levees, and irrigation systems.

Growth areas of civil and environmental engineering include infrastructure development, construction management, computer-aided design, hazardous waste management, and engineered environmental systems. In the future, civil and environmental engineers will be called upon to design structures for earth and outer space, prevent erosion and sedimentation of our rivers, predict effects of global climate change on the environment, provide modern and efficient transportation systems, and ensure the quality of our air and our surface waters and groundwaters.

In planning and design, civil and environmental engineers work with other engineers, architects, landscape architects, planners, economists, financiers, sociologists, lawyers, and other specialists as members of the design team. Some civil engineers work in engineering offices; others may be called upon to construct or supervise outdoor projects they have designed. These field assignments, many of which are in remote and fascinating parts of the world, are particularly appealing to many civil and environmental engineers. There also is significant potential for entrepreneurial work by civil and environmental engineers as they start their own companies.

Undergraduate Program

provides students with appropriate proficiency in the civil engineering subdisciplines of structures and materials, water-resources engineering, transportation systems, and environmental engineering;

ensures that students are knowledgeable about the importance, procedures, and benefits of professional licensure and continuing education;

offers design experiences that include projects in the curriculum that are offered by and guided in part by the professional community; and

provides research opportunities to undergraduate students through the department's connections with on-campus research entities including IIHR--Hydroscience and Engineering, the Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, the Public Policy Center, the Center for Computer Aided Design, the Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing, and the Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination.

Bachelor of Science in Engineering

Elective focus area courses must be selected according to guidelines established by the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. See "Elective Focus Area" after the following curriculum list.

Students choose one of two subtracks: civil, which provides breadth in the discipline, or environmental, which provides a concentration. Subtrack requirements are the same for the first semester of the first year but are different beginning with the second semester.

Some courses in the curriculum are prerequisites to others. Students who take courses in the order below satisfy the prerequisite requirements automatically. Students who do not follow this sequence still must satisfy all course prerequisites.

FIRST YEAR

First Semester

Civil Subtrack

FIRST YEAR

Second Semester

SECOND YEAR

First Semester

Second Semester

THIRD YEAR

First Semester

Second Semester

FOURTH YEAR

First Semester

Two of these:

053:034 Structural Design I

3 s.h.

053:157 Environmental Engineering Design

3 s.h.

053:174 Water Resource Design

3 s.h.

Second Semester

Environmental Subtrack

FIRST YEAR

Second Semester

SECOND YEAR

First Semester

Second Semester

THIRD YEAR

First Semester

Second Semester

FOURTH YEAR

First Semester

Two of these:

053:034 Structural Design I

3 s.h.

053:157 Environmental Engineering Design

3 s.h.

053:174 Water Resource Design

3 s.h.

Second Semester

Elective Focus Area

Standard elective focus areas are offered in environmental engineering; hydraulics and water resources; structures, mechanics, and materials; transportation; urban and regional planning; and in the broad field of civil engineering. Elective focus areas offered jointly with other engineering departments cut across programs (e.g., computer-aided engineering, design and optimization, environmental processes).

Civil engineering students must take one general education component course related to their elective focus area.

For more detailed information about elective focus areas, see "Bachelor of Science in Engineering"/"Elective Focus Area" in the College of Engineering section of the Catalog. For a list of standard elective focus area options and guidelines for tailored elective focus areas in civil engineering, see the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering web site.

Combined B.S.E./M.S.

Admission is based on the student's academic record. Applicants must have completed at least 80 s.h. (typically by the end of the fifth semester of undergraduate study) and have a cumulative g.p.a. of at least 3.25. They must submit a completed fast-track program application form and a letter stating their proposed area of specialization and the name of a department faculty member willing to be their primary M.S. advisor. They also must identify a faculty sponsor who can guide them from at least the second semester of their senior year until they complete the M.S.

Applications are due by March 1.

Graduate Programs

The department also cooperates in an interdisciplinary doctoral program with the Program in Applied Mathematical and Computational Sciences; see Applied Mathematical and Computational Sciences (Graduate College) in the Catalog.

Research and Study Areas

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE

GLOBAL AND REGIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH

HYDRAULICS, HYDROLOGY, AND WATER RESOURCES

IIHR offers unique opportunities for students to participate actively in the research, analysis, and design aspects of real-world problems. Considerable attention is given to the use of computers in mathematical modeling and in data acquisition and processing. IIHR high-speed computer facilities and advanced graphics and communication software complement the hydrology, hydraulics, and water resources curriculum.

STRUCTURES, MECHANICS, AND MATERIALS

TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS

Master of Science

Students who choose the thesis program earn up to 6 s.h. for the thesis. Nonthesis students in the environmental engineering and science curriculum earn an additional 3 s.h.

With the approval of their advisor, students develop a study plan that satisfies the requirements of their chosen curriculum.

All M.S. students must have a g.p.a. of at least 3.00, pass an oral examination, and in some program options, a written examination.

Doctor of Philosophy

All doctoral students are required to pass a written and oral comprehensive examination before being formally admitted to candidacy for the degree. This examination usually is taken after all required course work has been completed.

The program culminates in a final examination, in which candidates must successfully defend their dissertation.

Ph.D. students must maintain a g.p.a. of at least 3.00 throughout the program.

Admission

Each of the program's curricula is flexible; students may be admitted from all disciplines of engineering as well as from the mathematical and basic sciences.

Applicants to the M.S. program should have a cumulative undergraduate g.p.a. of at least 3.00. Ph.D. applicants should have a graduate g.p.a. of at least 3.00. Applicants whose grade-point average is slightly lower should contact the department.

Applicants should have a combined verbal and quantitative score of at least 1100 on the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) General Test. Lower scores are considered with other evidence of academic promise (recommendation letters, grade-point average). GRE General Test scores also are used in financial aid decisions.

Financial Support

Facilities and Laboratories

Undergraduate Core

For information about laboratories affiliated with core courses coordinated by other engineering departments, see the Catalog section for each of the departments.

Required and Elective Undergraduate Laboratories

053:030 Soil Mechanics (3 s.h.): equipped for determining the classification, seepage characteristics, stress-strain properties, and strength of soils.

053:050 Natural Environmental Systems (3 s.h.): environmental chemistry and biology of air, water, and soil quality, air and water pollution, limnology, global atmospheric change, fate and transport of pollutants; hazardous substances, risk analysis, standard setting.

053:055 Principles of Environmental Engineering (4 s.h.): conducted at the University Water Treatment Plant and Iowa City Wastewater Plant for demonstrations of unit operations and processes of water and wastewater treatment, and applications in environmental chemistry and microbiology.

053:071 Principles of Hydraulics and Hydrology (3 s.h.): hydraulics of pressure conduits and open channels, dimensional analysis, flow measurements, hydraulic machinery, with laboratory.

053:153 Environmental Chemistry Laboratory (3 s.h.): experiments to demonstrate fundamental principles of aquatic chemistry and chemical analyses for characterization of water and wastewater quality, conducted in the Environmental Engineering Laboratories.

053:154 Environmental Microbiology (3 s.h.): typical microorganisms isolated and their physiology and metabolic characteristics studied in the Environmental Engineering Laboratories.

053:156 and 053:151 Physical/Chemical and Biological Treatment Processes course laboratory (both 3 s.h.): unit operations, processes studied in bench scale experiments; use of typical process analytical parameters; experiments conducted in the Environmental Engineering Laboratories, University Water Plant, and Iowa City Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Graduate Laboratories

ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE LABORATORIES

The Environmental Engineering and Science Laboratories are affiliated with the University's Center for Health Effects of Environmental Contamination and its Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research, and with the UI Environmental Health Sciences Research Center, an affiliate of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).

HYDRAULICS, HYDROLOGY, AND WATER RESOURCES LABORATORIES

Research related to ecohydraulics and the environment takes place at the Lucille A. Carver Mississippi Riverside Environmental Research Station. Located on the Mississippi River near Muscatine, Iowa, the station provides engineers and biological scientists with an ideal facility in which to examine the multifaceted ecohydraulic processes of the upper Mississippi. The 500-square-foot facility is equipped with water-quality laboratories and a seminar room and is operated by IIHR--Hydroscience & Engineering.

STRUCTURES, MECHANICS, AND MATERIALS LABORATORIES

A wide range of experimental facilities is available for testing structural materials such as Portland cement concrete, asphalt, metals, timber, and composites. These facilities include several loading frames (purely uniaxial, purely torsional, and axial-torsional) that are available with computer-based control and data collection systems. Facilities for creep testing, triaxial soil testing, and high-cycle fatigue testing are also available. The laboratories have a variety of ovens and other facilities for preparation and treatment of test specimens.

Four well-equipped physical testing laboratories are dedicated to SMM teaching and research: the Civil Materials Laboratory, Soil Mechanics Laboratory, Plasticity Laboratory, and the Asphalt Laboratory. The Civil Materials Laboratory currently has a small-scale single-degree-of-freedom shaker table. Faculty, staff, and students have access to a small-scale six-degree-of-freedom shaker table through CCAD and a 12-camera Vicon motion-capture system.

TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS LABORATORY

Courses