What is civil engineering?

土木工程1班 20124 Civil engineering is that branch of engineering which aims to provide a comfortable and save living for the people. As is known to us all, It has a long history, but it is also full of vigorous.

Civil engineering is the engineering that deals with the design and construction of structures that are intended to be stationary, such as buildings and houses, tunnels, bridges, canals, highways, airports, port facilities, and road beds for railroads. Civil engineering offers a particular challenge because almost every structure or system that is designed and built by civil engineers is unique. One structure rarely duplicates another exactly. Even when structures seem to be identical, site requirement or other factors generally result in modification. Large structures like dams, bridges, or tunnels may differ substantially from previous structures. The development of civil engineering went through a long phylogeny. Build houses is the earliest civil engineering projects mankind begins, in Paleolithic times, people perched on the trees, or live in a natural cave, afterwards, as the population increase, people start to use stone or branches to build self-stipulation themselves imitate natural cover up, this is the beginning of civil engineering. From slave society, feudal society, to today, civil engineering, each in material, construction technology and theory various aspects have made great progress. In today’s world, civil

engineering works all over the world, such as famous Guangzhou Tower, Shanghai World Financial Center, and so on.

Civil engineering material is very important to the building. The service conditions of buildings demand a wide range of materials with specific properties. Hence the properties of the materials are to be studied properly to select suitable building materials. It is the foundation of civil engineering, the new material appears will promote architectural forms innovation, with design and construction process correspondingly improvement and innovation. Civil engineering material is gradually developed from scratch associated with human society advances and productive forces development of society, from natural material to artificial material, from handicraft production to industrial production several stages. In the Neolithic age, humans began using the natural material such as clay wood to built house, with the development of human production tools, natural stone material begin extensively use, especially, the concretes are used extensively.

Engineering is the practical application of the findings of theoretical science so that they can be put to work for the benefit of mankind. Engineering is one of the oldest occupations in the history of mankind. Without the skills included in the field of engineering our present-day civilization could never have evolved. The relationship between engineering and society is getting closer; it is sufficient, therefore, to say

again that the work performed by an engineer affects society in many different and important ways that he or she should aware of. An engineer also needs a sufficient command of language to be able to prepare reports that are clear and, in many cases, persuasive. An engineer engaged in research will need to be able to write up his or her findings for scientific publications.