Civil Engineering: Bridge Project Plan - Essay Example

CIVIL ENGINEERING: BRIDGE PROJECT PLAN and and Civil Engineering: Bridge ProjectPlan Am Hilal Addulnasser Al-Hilal, the bearer of registration number 708457, a foundation student at Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU), majoring in Bachelors of Art Civil Engineering (BA Civil Engineering). I am a sponsored student sponsored by KAHRAMAA (KM, Qatar General Electricity & Water Corporation). My sponsor KAHRAMAA is a government enterprise that is mandated to control, distribute and transmit water and electricity in the State of Qatar. The cooperation is the only organization that has been given the mandate to distribute and control water and electricity in the State. It was formally formed in 2000 by the government of Qatar to streamline the distribution and transmission of both water and electricity. The cooperation is well-formed under the requirements of HSE (Health Safety and Environment standards) HSE is a requirement by ISO 19001. The cooperation is an independent body that deals with demand for water and electricity and the quality of water supplied in Qatar. Some of the goals KAHRAMAA are to formulate water and power agreements, to support desalination, building and managing and operating satisfaction distribution and transmission network and to enforce regulations of layout, putting standards and necessary codes of practices for buildings and construction facilities. In addition, KAHRAMAA is a commercial enterprise and it aims at meeting water and electricity needs in Qatar (Malki, 2008). For many years I have been very much interested in engineering and specifically civil engineering. After winning the sponsorship by KAHRAMAA, I felt that my dream comes true. My interest is in the design, construction of roads bridges, tunnels and infrastructure. I have majored in these subjects because their skills will help me in taking part in the development of fundamentals of renaissance in both national and international forum. The subjects that I have majored in will help me increase my knowledge of international requirements in tunnels, roads, bridges and designs. These standards are important as they ensure that all the roads, bridges and tunnels build are of the best quality and standards. PART B I study my engineering course in the University of Bath that is located in Liverpool City in United Kingdom. Many people dont understand why I selected the LJMU (Liverpool John Moores University) rather than University of Bath. However, their main worry is answered by the differences and similarities between the two universities. In the context of similarities, the two universities’ structures and materials are the same. In addition, both universities offer Engineering Mathematics pin their curriculum (Nixon & Dray, 2000). However, the two universities have differences in their structure and characteristics. First, Liverpool John Moores University offer Civil Engineering Project while the University of Bath has no. Secondly, LJMU has construction practices. On the other hand, University of Bath has no construction practices. Third, LJMU has hydraulic, water and waste water courses while the University of Bath has no hydraulic, water and wastewater courses. Fourth, the University of Bath offers training in the building environment while Liverpool John Moores University does not offer. The faith difference is that the University of Bath’s programs is different to that of LJMU. For example, the University of Bath has assessments and examination. Under the context of programme, the program of the University of Bath does allow its students to mix academic study and industrial placement program. Lastly, University of Bath do give understudies to build up their incentives. In addition, the University of Bath gives its students a course in CCT (Critical and Creative Thinking), to improve their decision making ability. My lecture in the university is Dr. Felicity Ruddock who teaches engineering mathematics and Sustainable Infrastructures as his main activity in teaching work. My lecture is a member of Association of Civil Engineering Department (ACED) in the University. He also works as a supervisor for PhD students in the university. He studied his masters degree (ED) in 1999 in open learning program. In addition to teaching career he is also interested in research work. Some of his research work is "Use of Carbon nanotubes with Civil Engineering.” PART C In any engineering work, some of the factors to be considered before the start of the work is the structure to be constructed and the engineering materials to be used in making the structure. For a structure to be building, safety, economic, technical and environmental factors should be considered.In addition, aesthetic and social factors are also considered during making of the structure. For example for a bridge to be constructed, all these factors are supposed to be looked at. In this work plan, the structure is a bridge in my project work I will take care of all those factors. In addition, structures that a civil engineer build are towers, tunnels, buildings, bridges and stadia (John 1997). Some of the materials used by civil engineers and specifically for bridges like Sydney Harbor Bridge are; Concrete, steel which carry dead and live loads in the underground abutments, corrosion which prevent the bridge from effects of ravages and rivets with strength and shear strength. History of Bridges A bridge is any structure that connect over water or an obstacle. The obstacle could be a depression. It allows passage of people of object. The history of bridges started early in 4000 B.C when a bridge was constructed over the Mediterranean Sea by Roman Empire. Traditionally, a log was used to cross any obstacles. In addition, woven rope fibrous were used as a bridge to cross rivers. Improvement was done and arched structures and stones were constructed and used to cross the depressions. However, these bridges had a challenge of risk of fire and lot (John 1997). With the challenges, engineers have come up with modern type of bridges. The first one is the beam which is made up of a long timber mixed with metals and concrete (John 1997). The second bridge is truss bridge which is a modernization of Beam Bridge where the beams are arranged into the triangular shape so that each beam can share the weight of the object on it. The third type of a bridge is an arch bridge which is the bow shaped (John 1997). This bow shape causes weight on it to create a horizontal force on its ends. The fourth type of a bridge is the cantilever bridge which has a self-supporting structure facing each other. The arms meet at the center where they support or accommodate a third arm (Asmussen 1997). Fifth type of a modern bridge is cable-stay Bridge which has a cable that support them in the center. The last type of bridges suspension bridge which just differ from the cable-stay in that they are suspended from vertical cables attached to more than two main cables (John 1997). The conversion of cast iron into steel saw the beginning of construction of the modern bridges. Steel eased the work of the engineers. In addition, steel is also flexible hence its workability is easy. Single-pieced rolled steel are used to create long spans while box-beam are used to make spans (Asmussen 1997). For every building work, the mechanical properties of the building materials determine the strength of the built structure. If the mechanical properties of the building materials are strong, that means that the structure constructed will be also strong. Due to this, engineers usually consider the best material to be used in the building work. One of the properties is tensile strength. Tensile strength is the ability to how strong the material can withstand before it fails. It’s the ability to with stand stress (Peter &Roy, 1989). On the other hand, compressive property is the ability of the material to withstand the maximum load without braking when compression force is applied to them. These two properties make a structure built out of materials bearing these them to be stronger. The structure will have a maximum load that it can withstand when stressed and when compressed. The third property material used in construction of a bridge is elasticity. Elasticity is the ability or tendency of the construction material to go back to their normal shape after a force of any kind has acted on it. Elastic materials tend to go back to their original form or shape after a force act on them. Most solid materials do not go back to their original shape and they get deformed. In the bridge and other civil engineering work, elastic materials are used to make the structure more strong. This is a confirmation that the bridges can carry a heavy load but it would not be deformed by the load. The bridge will be in a position to withheld large weight without being destroyed or deformed (Peter &Roy, 1989). Ductility property is the ability of solid material t deform if stressing force act on them. Their materials tend to lose their shapes and form with stressing force acting on them. On the other hand, the ability of solid material to be destroyed by the compressive force is malleability. Bridge construction materials should not be ductile or malleable (Peter &Roy, 1989). These two properties will make the structure so week for it to carry large weight like vehicles and loaded tracks. Another good characteristic of a construction material is the ability to resist corrosion and fire. Corrosion is the ability of the material to react with the chemical element. The construction materials must be less corrosive and a good corrosive resistance (Peter &Roy, 1989). The materials should also have a good ability to resist fire. Bridges should not be constructed with a high flammable material. Fire is a destructive thing and a bridge constructed out of flammable materials do not last longer (Burrows, Friend, Mahon & Warren 2005). Another property is durability. Durability is the ability to withstand damage, pressure and wear. Any material used in bridge construction should have these properties as they ensure a strong bridge (Burrows, Friend, Mahon & Warren 2005). Steel is said to contain most of these positive properties and that is why is mostly used to construct buildings and bridges in civil engineering. Conclusion Steel have almost all the properties described above. This is why steel bridges give different designs than the concrete bridges. Concrete has limited of these good properties hence not most used in construction of bridges in the modern construction. References Asmussen, J. C. 1997. Modal analysis based on the random decrement technique: application to civil engineering structures (Doctoral dissertation, unknown). Al Malki, A. 2008. Business opportunities in the water industry in Qatar. Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (KAHRAMAA). Presented in Doha, Qatar. Bakis, C., Bank, L. C., Brown, V., Cosenza, E., Davalos, J. F., Lesko, J. J., ... & Triantafillou, T. C. 2002. Fiber-reinforced polymer composites for construction-state-of-the-art review. Journal of Composites for Construction, 6(2), 73-87. Best, J., Bennett, S., Bridge, J., & Leeder, M. 1997. Turbulence modulation and particle velocities over flat sand beds at low transport rates. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 123(12), 1118-1129. Burrows, A. D., Cassar, K., Friend, R. M., Mahon, M. F., Rigby, S. P., & Warren, J. E. 2005. Solvent hydrolysis and templating effects in the synthesis of metal-organic frameworks. CrystEngComm, 7, 548-550. Nixon, S., & Dray, T. Liverpool John Moores University. Read More