Civil Engineering with Industrial Year MEng

This module introduces you to the fundamental principles of hydrostatics and enables you to apply these principles to model problems relevant to civil engineering. You’ll spend around four hours in lectures and example classes each week to study for this module.

This is a problem-based group design project which focuses on the application of knowledge and skills, from across the taught modules. Groups develop and cost a major civil engineering project and plan resources to ensure timely and cost-effective completion of the work. Then a design of an engineering structure will be carried out, including presentation of options and a detailed design stage. The final task will be to design and construct a model structure, which will be tested in the laboratory.

This module builds on core skills and aims to: introduce students to structural analysis and modelling tools; develop their ability to communicate; introduce construction materials and their related design considerations; provide an opportunity to learn advanced surveying techniques.

Delivered through four hours of lectures each week, this module covers the following topics: analysis of 2D stresses and strains, virtual work method, strain energy method and analysis of arches and cables, the response of circular and non-circular members to torsion, the stress distribution of a beam under bending moment, shear and axial force, among others.

This module, delivered through a combination of lectures and workshops, for three hours each week, covers the fundamental tools to manipulate vectors and matrices relevant to applications in engineering, and introduces fundamental concepts and applications of differentiation and integration in one or more dimensions.

Giving you an introduction to the core areas of geotechnics, this module covers topics such as: origin and types of soil, soil as a 3-phase material, soil description and classification, compaction, water in soils, basic mechanics, and stresses in soils and ground investigation. In an average week you’ll spend four hours in lectures, example classes and practicals per week.

On successfully completing the module, students will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the fundamental principles of fluid dynamics. You’ll be able to solve simple pipe flow problems and demonstrate awareness of open channel flows and boundary layers and drag. You’ll spend four hours in lectures and example classes per week when studying this module.

You will be spending three hours a week in lectures exploring engineering materials and their basic properties, principles in material selection and sustainability and an understanding of the behaviour of construction materials.

This module provides students with an opportunity to take a design project from concept through to an advanced design stage covering structural, steel, geotechnical, infrastructure and services considerations, whilst working as a group. This is a year-long project, concentrating on site conditions, conceptual design and structural and geotechnical design in the first semester and detailed calculations in the second semester. The project gives students the opportunity to develop their written and oral presentation skills.

This module builds on core skills and aims to: introduce students to structural analysis and modelling tools; develop their ability to communicate; introduce construction materials and their related design considerations; provide an opportunity to learn advanced surveying techniques.

The fundamental behaviour established in the first year is extended to cover the concepts of: virtual work, analysis of indeterminate structures, instability of structural systems, plastic analysis and design and vibration. You’ll spend four hours in lectures and example classes per week when studying this module.

This module aims to develop further understanding of fundamental behaviour of soils and you will learn how to perform geotechnical analyses. You’ll spend five hours in lectures and two hours in practicals per week.

The module covers fundamental tools to manipulate complex numbers as well as ordinary and partial differential equations relevant to engineering. You’ll spend around three hours in lectures and example classes each week.

This module introduces reinforced concrete construction and the relationship between structural behaviour and the design of reinforced concrete elements. It includes the structural design procedures for reinforced concrete elements in flexure, shear and compression. On average you will spend about four or five contact hours per week in lectures, laboratory classes or in the design studio for this module.

This module introduces the fundamentals of consolidation and the different components of settlement. In addition, shallow and deep foundation design, from both a fundamental and Eurocode approach is covered. Reinforced soil, 1D & 2D water flow through soils, and sustainability considerations in geotechnical design are also discussed.

Students work in groups on the design and planning of a civil engineering project that aims to integrate all the disciplines covered on the course. Typical projects include: water works, major highway schemes and retail parks. Staff and visiting professional engineers provide guidance.

This module addresses real-world hydraulic applications and designs using the theory learnt by the students in Hydraulics 1 and 2 and newly obtained knowledge about urban drainage systems, flood protection, water supply and surge protection. Seven laboratory experiments cover fundamental aspects of hydraulics in open channel flow, pipe flow and river flow. A number of common hydraulic systems will be designed under application of the newly obtained knowledge in the class room and the laboratory.

The module describes the theoretical and practical aspects of photogrammetry, laser scanning and gives an introduction to geometrical remote sensing. Subjects covered include:

• Single and multi image/photograph geometry
• Digital imagery and processing
• Selected work flow and procedures
• Data capture techniques and products
• Aerial triangulation
• Airborne and mobile laser scanning
• Recent developments

Method and Frequency of Class:

3 hour morning block

Method of Assessment:

The module assesses the risk of injury posed to the general public and workforce through the operation of engineering systems and infrastructure. This is considered in the context of civil and transportation systems and an indication is given of acceptable risk. You will spend three hours a week in lectures to study this module.

This module introduces some of the theory that forms the technical basis of the management and control of urban road networks, including; traffic flow theory, transport modelling and operation of traffic signal control systems.

Assessment method

This module will be assessed 100% by exam.

This module covers advanced analytic mathematical techniques used to provide exact or approximate solutions to common classes of ordinary differential equations (ODES) typical in Engineering.

Techniques covered include: method of variation of parameters, Laplace transform methods, Taylor series method, Frobenius method, asymptotic regular perturbations and strained coordinates and multiple scales. Each week there will normally be a one one-hour lecture and a two hour workshop to introduce key mathematical knowledge on module topics.

The methodology and associated numerical techniques are introduced to enable a selection of mathematical operations to be evaluated with the use of computer-based software algorithms to problems that cannot be solved analytically.

Topics include: introduction to concepts of numerical analysis, quadrature and curve fitting, numerical linear algebra, qualitative and finite-difference methods for ODEs and numerical methods for solving PDEs. Each week there will normally be one one-hour lecture and a two hour workshop to introduce key mathematical knowledge on module topics.

Students choose a project in their preferred discipline and plan a detailed investigation. Projects involve lab work, field investigations or computer modelling and require data collection and analysis. 

Working in groups, you'll design and plan a major civil engineering project. Typical projects include water works, major highway schemes and retail parks. Staff and visiting professional engineers provide guidance.

This module is designed to deliver an understanding of sustainability principles and how, in particular, transport infrastructure engineering as well as the wider construction industry can contribute to sustainable development.

The module will include the following themes:

• Sustainability: an introduction to sustainability, sustainable development; sustainable construction; and how transport infrastructure engineering can contribute to sustainable construction.
• Environmental impacts of infrastructure construction: a review of the positive and negative environmental impacts of construction including resources and waste and energy and climate change.
• Social impacts of infrastructure construction: a review of the positive and negative social impacts of construction including; corporate social responsibility, responsible sourcing, poverty reduction and sustainable development goals.
• Assessment: indicators, assessment systems, environmental life-cycle assessment, life-cycle cost analysis.

Delivery

Assessment method

This module will introduce the components of railway track structures, conventional and otherwise. It will include analysis of forces on a railway track and consequent deflections, stresses, alignment design principles, and an overview of the railway as a total system including operational issues, signalling and control.

Assessment method

This module is assessed by individual and group coursework (40%) and an exam (60%).

Delivery

Assessment method

This module covers the design of highway alignments, including curvatures, gradients, number of lanes, junction design and drainage. It also includes analysis and design of pavement structures and surfaces using different techniques and materials together with the deterioration mechanisms involved.

It module aims to:

• embed the ability to design sensible and functional highway alignments
• introduce the design of pavement structures
• give understanding of the roles and design of different pavement surfaces

Delivery

Assessment method

This module considers the effects of wind on structures. It shows how the wind loading codes are developed from first principles and how they can be applied to predict wind induced forces in structures. The dynamic response of structures to wind is studied with the help of wind tunnel tests.

This module is delivered through six hours of lectures and computer-based tutorials each week and covers the principles of water height variation, ocean forces (from waves and tides) and energy conversion into electrical power and to the design of energy production systems.

This module considers some of the most commonly-used system reliability assessment techniques applied to support system management.

It covers the construction of reliability models that use basic component failure information to describe specific system failure modes, the qualitative and quantitative analyses of these models, and the critical evaluation of systems using the analytical results. The models will be discussed in the context of their application to engineering systems and infrastructure assets.

The module aims to provide students with:

• an understanding of the basic statistical, probabilistic and mathematical concepts required to predict the reliability of components and systems.
• a detailed knowledge of the most commonly used system reliability assessment techniques.
• the ability to critically evaluate systems and assets using mathematical models.

Assessment method

This module will be assessed by an in-class test (20%) and an exam (80%).

The module will look into advanced structural analysis methods including finite element, non-linear analysis and stability. It will also look into the analysis of dynamic systems.

This module will reinforce and advance some of the principles of soil mechanics previously learnt, and describe the principles of Critical State Soil Mechanics (CSSM), a model used to predict the behaviour of soils.

It includes revision of previous concepts, shear box and triaxial tests data analysis, critical state line, elasticity and plasticity, development of an elasto-plastic soil model, and constitutive model application in numerical simulations.

Students will learn about and conduct their own triaxial tests on soil samples within the laboratory such that they can obtain constitutive model parameters for the soil. Students will learn to use a finite element method (FEM) software package that is popular for geotechnical analyses as well as the principles of physical modelling using a geotechnical centrifuge. The coursework element will require students to use constitutive model parameters obtained from triaxial testing within FEM analyses.

The FEM analyses will include

1. the replication of the triaxial tests and verification of results against analytical predictions (using CSSM), and
2. simulation of a boundary value problem (e.g. vertical loading of a foundation), for which they will compare numerical predictions against a centrifuge test data set provided to them.

Delivery

Assessment method

The module will look into the design of specialised structural systems such as composite beams and floors, portal frames, tubular trusses, and pre-stressed concrete beams and slabs. It will also look into connection behaviour, the design of steel moment connections and sway stability of buildings. A major group design exercise will illustrate the approach to the design of complete structures.