Bulletin

Graduate Programs

The Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics offers graduate programs leading to the degree of Master of Science (M.S.), the professional degrees Civil Engineer and Mechanics Engineer and the degrees of Doctor of Engineering Science (Eng.Sc.D.) and Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.). These programs are flexible and may involve concentrations in structures, construction engineering, reliability and random processes, soil mechanics, fluid mechanics, hydrogeology, continuum mechanics, finite element methods, computational mechanics, experimental mechanics, acoustics, vibrations and dynamics, earthquake engineering, or any combination thereof, such as fluid-structure interaction. The Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is required for admission to the department.

Civil Engineering

By selecting technical electives, students may focus on one of several areas of concentration or prepare for future endeavors such as architecture. Some typical concentrations are:

Structural engineering: applications to steel and concrete buildings, bridges, and other structures

Geotechnical engineering: soil mechanics, engineering geology, and foundation engineering

Construction engineering and management: capital facility planning and financing, strategic management, managing engineering and construction processes, construction industry law, construction techniques, managing civil infrastructure systems, civil engineering and construction entrepreneurship

Environmental engineering and water resources: transport of water-borne substances, hydrology, sediment transport, hydrogeology, and geoenvironmental design of containment systems


Engineering Mechanics

Programs in engineering mechanics offer comprehensive training in the principles of applied mathematics and continuum mechanics and in the application of these principles to the solution of engineering problems. The emphasis is on basic principles, enabling students to choose from among a wide range of technical areas. Students may work on problems in such disciplines as systems analysis, acoustics, and stress analysis, and in fields as diverse as transportation, environmental, structural, nuclear, and aerospace engineering. Program areas include:

Continuum mechanics: solid and fluid mechanics, theories of elastic and inelastic behavior, and damage mechanics

Vibrations: nonlinear and random vib-rations; dynamics of continuous media, of structures and rigid bodies, and of combined systems, such as fluid- structure interaction; active, passive, and hybrid control systems for structures under seismic loading; dynamic soil-structure interaction effects on the seismic response of structures

Random processes and reliability: problems in design against failure under earthquake, wind, and wave loadings; noise, and turbulent flows; analysis of structures with random properties

Fluid mechanics: turbulent flows, two-phase flows, fluid-structure interaction, fluid-soil interaction, flow in porous media, computational methods for flow and transport processes, and flow and transport in fractured rock under mechanical loading

Computational mechanics: finite element and boundary element techniques, symbolic computation, and bioengineering applications

A flight structures program is designed to meet the needs of industry in the fields of high-speed and space flight. The emphasis is on mechanics, mathematics, fluid dynamics, flight structures, noise transmission, and control. The program is a part of the Guggenheim Institute of Flight Struct-ures in the department. Specific information regarding degree requirements is available in the department office.