Driver Trett Digest Issue 26 - Flipbook - Page 16
comprising planning, geography, science and the
environment. Such diverse backgrounds provide an
ideal wealth of wider knowledge, characteristic of a civil
engineer.
Such a wide background available to civil engineers
not only enables them to successfully grapple with
the challenges of co-ordinating specialists but it also
means that their own individual specialisms may be
taken from a far broader spectrum. Significantly, as
major infrastructure projects are getting bigger and
more complex, with a seemingly ever-increasing
range of specialist disciplines, the co-ordination and
integration often (at least in terms of engineering) falls
to the civil engineer, making use of their broad-based
skills. Often labelled as project managers, these civil
engineers have a broad breadth of experience that is
frequently tested as an expert.
The overall educational standard for engineers is a
subject in which I have become increasingly involved
with over recent years. My involvement with the UK
Engineering Council, Joint Board of Moderators and
International Engineering Alliance particularly with
accreditation of university courses both in the UK
and overseas, has enabled me to appreciate the link
between the demands of society/industry and the
university curriculum.
The construction industry is changing rapidly not
least due to issues such as sustainability, health
and safety etc., but also in the context of emerging
technology with the increasing development of
computer software including BIM and most excitingly,
AI. In my view, AI will not only impact design and
construction but will inevitably need to be embraced by
expert witnesses and indeed the courts.
My involvement with engineering education has also
given me an insight into how civil engineering can be
reasonably categorised under four main headings, each
of which covers several sub-disciplines. I summarise
this in the following table and in the absence of anything
more definitive commend its use in demonstrating the
range of skills that fall under civil engineering.
Of course, the disciplines / sub-disciplines shown
can be further sub-divided, for example a highways
expert may have chosen to specialise in pavement or
alignments or lighting. It follows that a civil engineering
expert can be expected to have specialised in one (or
more) of the discipline skills shown with a generalist
more likely to have their knowledge and experience
spread across a far greater number of disciplines/subdisciplines. These specialisms within disciplines seem
to me to be very similar to the way that a structural
engineering expert may have chosen to specialise in,
say, the design of high-rise building within seismic
zones.
16
