Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics
610 S.W. Mudd, MC 4709, 854-3143;
info@civil.columbia.edu www.civil.columbia.edu
The Department of Civil Engineer-ing and Engineering Mechanics focuses on two broad areas of instruction and research. The first, the classical field of civil engineering, deals with the planning, design, construction, and maintenance of the built environment. This includes buildings, foundations, bridges, transportation facilities, nuclear and conventional power plants, hydraulic structures, and other facilities essential to society. The second is the science of mechanics and its applications to various engineering disciplines. Frequently referred to as applied mechanics, it includes the study of the mechanical and other properties of materials, stress analysis of stationary and movable structures, the dynamics and vibrations of complex structures, aero- and hydrodynamics, and the mechanics of biological systems.
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Mission
The Department aims to provide students with a technical foundation anchored in theory together with the breadth needed to follow diverse career paths, whether in the profession via advanced study or apprenticeship, or as a base for other pursuits.
Current Research Activities
Current research activities in the
Department of Civil Engineering and Engineering Mechanics are centered in the areas
outlined below. A number of these activities impact directly on problems of societal
importance, such as rehabilitation of the infrastructure, mitigation of natural or
man-made disasters, and environmental concerns.
Solid mechanics: mechanical properties of new and exotic materials,
constitutive equations for geologic materials, failure of materials and components,
properties of fiber-reinforced cement composites, damage mechanics.
• Multihazard risk assessment and mitigation:
Integrated risk studies of the
civil infrastructure form a multihazard perspective including earthquake, wind,
flooding, fire, blast, and terrorism. The engineering, social, financial, and
decision-making perspectives of the problem are examined in an integrated manner.
•
Probabilistic mechanics:
Random processes and fields to model uncertain loads
and material/soil properties, nonlinear random vibrations, reliability and safety of
structural systems, computational stochastic mechanics, stochastic finite element and
boundary element techniques, Monte Carlo simulation techniques, random micromechanics.
• Structural control and health monitoring:
Topics of research in this highly
cross-disciplinary field include the development of “smart” systems for the mitigation
and reduction of structural vibrations, assessment of the health of structural systems
based on their vibration response signatures, and the modeling of nonlinear systems
based on measured dynamic behavior.
Fluid
mechanics: solid-laden turbulent flows, porous surface turbulence, flow
through porous media, numerical simulation of flow and transport processes, flow and
transport in fractured rock.
Environmental engineering/water resources: modeling of flow and pollutant
transport in surface and subsurface waters, unsaturated zone hydrology, geoenvironmental
containment systems, analysis of watershed flows including reservoir simulation.
Structures: dynamics, stability, and design of structures, structural
failure and damage detection, fluid and soil structure interaction, ocean structures
subjected to wind-induced waves, inelastic dynamic response of reinforced concrete
structures, earthquake-resistant design of structures.
Geotechnical engineering: soil behavior, constitutive modeling, reinforced
soil structures, geotechnical earthquake engineering, liquefaction and numerical
analysis of geotechnical systems.
Structural materials: cement-based materials, micro- and macro-models of
fiber-reinforced cement composites, utilization of industrial by-products and waste
materials, beneficiation of dredged material.
Earthquake engineering: response of structures to seismic loading, seismic
risk analysis, active and passive control of structures subject to earthquake
excitation, seismic analysis of long-span cable-supported bridges.
Flight
structures: aeroelasticity, aeroacoustics, active vibration and noise
control, smart structures, noise transmission into aircraft, and vibro-acoustics of
space structures.
Construction engineering and management: contracting strategies; alternative
project delivery systems, such as design-build, design-build-operate, and
design-build-finance-operate; minimizing project delays and disputes; advanced
technologies to enhance productivity and efficiency; strategic decisions in global
engineering and construction markets.
Infrastructure delivery and management: decision support systems for
infrastructure asset management; assessing and managing infrastructure assets and
systems; capital budgeting processes and decisions; innovative financing methods;
procurement strategies and processes; data management practices and systems; indicators
of infrastructure performance and service.
Facilities
The offices and laboratories of the department are in the S. W. Mudd Building and the Engineering Terrace.
Computing
The department manages a
substantial computing facility of its own in addition to being networked to all the
systems operated by the University. The department facility enables its users to perform
symbolic and numeric computation, three-dimensional graphics, and expert systems
development. Connections to wide-area networks allow the facility’s users to communicate
with centers throughout the world. All faculty and student offices and department
laboratories are hardwired to the computing facility, which is also accessible remotely
to users. Numerous personal computers and graphics terminals exist throughout the
department, and a PC lab is available to students in the department in addition to the
larger school-wide facility.
Laboratories
The Robert A. W. Carleton Strength
of Materials Laboratory is a very large facility equipped for research into all types of
engineering materials and structural elements. The Heffner Laboratory for Hydrologic
Research is a newly established facility for both undergraduate instruction and research
in all aspects of fluid mechanics and its applications. The Eugene Mindlin Laboratory
for Structural Deterioration Research is a teaching and research facility dedicated to
all facets of the assessment of structures and the processes of deterioration of
structural performance. The concrete laboratory is equipped to perform a wide spectrum
of experimental research in cement-based materials. The Donald M. Burmister Soil
Mechanics Laboratory is used in both undergraduate and graduate instruction for static
and dynamic testing of soils and foundations. The geotechnical centrifuge located in the
Carleton Laboratory is used for geotechnical and geoenvironmental research.
The Institute of Flight Structures
The Institute of Flight Structures
was established within the department through a grant by the Daniel and Florence
Guggenheim Foundation. It provides a base for graduate training in aerospace and
aeronautical related applications of structural analysis and design.
Center for Infrastructure Studies
The Center was established in the
department to provide a professional environment for faculty and students from a variety
of disciplines to join with industry and government to develop and apply the
technological tools and knowledge bases needed to deal with the massive problems of the
city, state, and regional infrastructure. The Center is active in major infrastructure
projects through a consortium of universities and agencies. back to top