Glenn J. Rix, Nelson C. Baker, Laurence J. Jacobs, Jorge Vanegas, and Abdul H. Zureick
Georgia Institute of Technology
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Atlanta, Georgia 30332-0355
The United States has allowed much of its civil infrastructure to deteriorate due to age, increased demand on infrastructure systems, and inadequate investment. We must now reverse this decline and "rebuild America" if the United States is to remain competitive. An important part of this effort is education; it is imperative that we train a new generation of civil engineers with the skills to provide effective solutions to infrastructure problems. With support from an NSF Combined Research - Curriculum Development award, the Georgia Tech School of Civil and Environmental Engineering is developing an undergraduate civil engineering curriculum track to address this need.
Georgia Tech's existing track-oriented civil engineering undergraduate curriculum provides an ideal environment for developing a new track that focuses on deterioration science, assessment technologies, renewal engineering, and project management. Using existing, isolated courses as a foundation, the curriculum development effort will (1) introduce several new courses which supplement the existing courses; (2) incorporate cognitive science and educational technologies into the curriculum; (3) implement an educational assessment program to measure the effectiveness of the curriculum development effort; and (4) disseminate the resulting curriculum to a wide audience via multimedia information servers such those on the World-Wide Web and through continuing education courses to educate practicing engineers in the public and private sectors.
Despite the importance of civil infrastructure for the economic well-being of the Nation, we have allowed our infrastructure to deteriorate at an alarming rate. For example, approximately 50 percent of the Nation's bridges are structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. The decline is attributable to three factors:
Given the critical importance that the infrastructure has for our Nation's competitiveness, it is imperative that we train a new generation of civil engineers with the skills to provide effective solutions to infrastructure problems. This paper describes an effort to develop an undergraduate civil engineering curriculum that integrates science, analysis, and design to understand deterioration processes, condition assessments, and retrofit strategies.
Our vision of the integrated nature of the infrastructure issues faced by the Nation is shown in Fig. 1. Educating engineers in deterioration science, assessment technologies, and renewal engineering will permit an understanding of the mechanisms through which the infrastructure deteriorates, how its present condition can be evaluated efficiently, and deployment strategies for rehabilitation and reconstruction. The integrated nature of these tasks and their successful realization in practice also requires effective project management skills. Furthermore, the immense amount of information sharing between disciplines involved in rehabilitation efforts requires mechanisms to promote widespread dissemination of engineering information to both engineers and public officials. Successfully preparing engineers to address the nation's infrastructure needs will require education in all these areas.
The following sections briefly summarize the topics featured in each of these integrated areas.
Deterioration science examines the underlying mechanisms of the aging and degradation of infrastructure systems. This research requires an understanding of the micro and macroscopic nature of damage evolution in civil engineering materials such as concrete, steel, and wood, as well as the high-performance fiber-reinforced polymer composites. The curriculum development team has extensive experience in the mechanics of materials, including previous work in accelerated test methods for creep, fatigue, and impact in adverse environmental conditions; dynamic fracture mechanics; tracking of damage evolution in concrete components; and the mechanics of interface fracture with applications to damaged bonds
A critical issue is the need to rapidly and cost effectively evaluate the present condition of civil infrastructure. Nondestructive test and evaluation methods are well-suited for characterizing materials and determining structural integrity of structural systems. The faculty involved in this curriculum development effort have complementary expertise in several aspects of nondestructive testing including the use of ultrasonic techniques for flaw characterization, wave propagation in heterogeneous materials, acoustic emission testing, subsurface imaging using geophysical techniques, and low-frequency testing for structural response.
In recent years, there has been increased demand for the use of modern fiber-reinforced composite materials for the rehabilitation and strengthening of existing structures. This trend is expected to continue with increasing requirements for lightweight, high stiffness and/or strength, non-conducting, and non-corroding materials. Members of the development team have been involved in an extensive experimental and analytical program aimed toward assessing the strength of fiber-reinforced plastics for use in the rehabilitation of aging infrastructure. The program has involved testing of fiber-reinforced plastic structural components of various lengths under static and dynamic loads in adverse environmental conditions. Researchers are conducting tests to examine material degradation, damage, deterioration in the presence of adverse exposure and environmental conditions, creep, fatigue, and impact behavior.
A critical issue is the need for engineers to integrate the technical knowledge required for rehabilitation and reconstruction projects with the managerial knowledge required for the effective implementation and execution of their design solutions. Advanced tools for effective project management have been developed through an industry-wide research program through the Construction Industry Institute, and are being customized and adapted to fit the pedagogical needs of undergraduate civil engineering education. The faculty involved in this effort are active in two areas relevant to this proposal. The first is the experience gained from developing and teaching education modules aimed at continuing education of construction professionals; the second is the experience gained from an extensive curriculum development effort for undergraduate engineering education in the areas of sustainable development and technologies.
The coupling of cognitive science, multimedia, and telecommunications is producing forums for the dissemination of engineering knowledge. These technologies allow the student to more fully experience and understand engineering phenomena when appropriately structured to reflect human learning. Members of the development team are involved in understanding, developing, and assessing the role of these technologies in the teaching and learning of engineering as founded on the principles of cognitive science. Our research has already performed assessments of these technologies to identify the educational benefits and is presently utilizing them in classroom activities. Furthermore, the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering has taken the lead to promote civil engineering activities the World-Wide Web as evidenced by Georgia Tech's role as "librarian" and facilitator for civil engineering-related information on the Internet.
Curriculum in Infrastructure Assessment, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction
The civil engineering curriculum being developed is targeted towards upper level undergraduate and introductory graduate level courses with the intent of creating a new philosophy for dealing with infrastructure that reflects the integrated nature of the problem illustrated in Fig. 1 and which encompasses the variety of disciplines within civil engineering. At Georgia Tech, we recently renovated our undergraduate curriculum to give students the ability to focus their education in one of several areas of emphasis during their senior year. Thus a framework is already in place for developing an integrated infrastructure emphasis. The curriculum development effort is focusing on the following objectives:
Several specific tasks for achieving these objectives are currently underway:
This activity is directed towards collecting and organizing the core knowledge that is being implemented in the curriculum. Research has shown that strong organization of material is essential to the proper learning by students, thus a strong commitment to providing time and energies for this activity is necessary. Several new courses in the areas of deterioration science, renewal and rehabilitation engineering, advanced tools for effective project management, and infrastructure policy and management are being developed to complement and supplement existing courses. With the addition of these new courses, the infrastructure assessment, rehabilitation, and reconstruction track includes the courses shown in Table 1.
As the curriculum concerning infrastructure assessment, evaluation, and repair is being developed, a formal educational assessment plan is being conducted that addresses the focus on what the students learn as opposed to what is taught.. The educational assessment plan will have the following components.
We envision three distinct mechanisms for disseminating the structure and content of the learning exercises resulting from this combined research and curriculum development effort:
Recent studies and catastrophic failures have focused media attention on the poor condition of America's infrastructure. Our inadequate infrastructure poses a threat to public health and safety and jeopardizes our economic productivity thus making it imperative that we address sustaining our Nation's infrastructure. Assessment, rehabilitation, and repair of existing infrastructure is central to this effort
Since this Nation does not have the resources to completely rebuild its infrastructure. This project intends to develop an integrated curriculum in engineering that places the importance of preserving and sustaining our civil infrastructure at the forefront of our engineering pedagogy. Further, this effort is built upon a strong foundation of science, analysis, and design incorporated with advanced engineering management tools and sound cognitive educational philosophies.
The curriculum development effort described in this paper is being made possible by a Combined Research - Curriculum Development grant from the National Science Foundation (EEC-9420522). The authors are grateful to Dr. Win Aung and Ms. Mary Poats of the Engineering Education and Centers Division of NSF for their support of this effort.