Artist = Engineer / 2

Last time I wrote that Civil Engineering is a half science plus half art. The artist feels something intangiable where he will convey that feeling to rest of us through his Art.

Then how could Engineer become a half artist?..confused??

Engineer feels the answer (which is an art) and then use his science to achive that answer ...that is an art..



see the picture below ....







Note: please note that author of the original document is unknown

The Wheel has been invented, Engineer you are supposed to use it..

During the time of my undergraduate, one of my professor took a great effort to teach us the difference between a mathematician and an engineer. To his credit, he almost did it in a 100%

Mathematics is paramount in engineering. But Engineering is not all about  the mathematics.


Engineer is always a practical,solution provider and most importantly see all the (most of) aspects of the problem in solving the issue.While doing so , he should not be restricted in specific theoretical framework but should be an out of box thinker.

 As an engineer one does not need to immersed in rigorous theories always, how it invented, but he should be able to use the theory creatively  in  day to day problems....

What they need is creativity  blended with a sound technical background.......and essentially unframed imagination skills......

See this

who ever wrote this answer, I see a different person behind this, ..for sure he has seen a different aspect of the question that conventional thinker, a framed mind will never find .. He should be given full marks...



again the above answer shows the creativity which is handy in an engineering (or civil engineering?)

Answer may be wrong in an eyes of a mathematician. But answer gives an indirect indication of a creative thinker......

the following is a good lesson for the teachers. Picture says thousand words

Before you drink....

Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it. - Lao Tzu

Water is an important entity in our life.

Still most of you may not aware that Civil engineers play a significant role when it comes to providing the potable water to your tap.

Water treatment is a highly developed area where so many civil engineers have contributed to the development of the subject.

Recently I had an opportunity to visit a Water Treatment Plant in Australia.
Inorder to provide you a general idead about the water purification process, I will go through a small description with a relevant photo.

Non technical readers , please skip what i have written under brakets



Pump House, the place where water is pumped from the river.



Water is pumped, 34m below from the tratment plant level. Can you guess why plant has been bult on a such a higer level....?


Then chemicals are been mixed to the raw water ( Alum and NaOH). it happens in the following chamber (its called Rapid Mixer: can any one remember 'hydrulic jump' we lerned at UOM?? that is the theory based here))



Chemical mixed water been allowed to flow through the 'flocculation tank' ( I'm sorry to use a technical term..but in this tank chemical particles get adhear to the tiny particals in the raw water and form a much bigger particles..which will easilly get settled than tiny particles)




particales in the water allow to settle in the larger tanks (Sedimentation tank)



Then water is been flitrated using filtration tanks.



(abouve picutre is a back wash of the flteration)

Filtered water collected through the pumpms and send them to the purified water well, to be distributed to the consumers.




These are the stroage tanks which store the varoius chemicals for the tratment processes.




Particles taht have been removed from the water (Sludge: after thickning)




So many efforts, time and money have been spent to provide you a good drinkable water to your tap. So it is your duty to optimise your water usage...


"Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it......"

The Tallest Bridge

There are so many Guinness records for the tallest entities  such as tallest man,tallest woman,tallest building etc.

when it comes to bridges which one will line up with the tallest tag? 

The world tallest  Bridge is 'Millau Viaduct' which is a part of the A75 road that links the Paris with Barcelona, France.




The bridge is 343 meters high and its highest point is more higher than the Eiffel Tower as well.



The total Cost of the project was AUD $ 525 million.





This project has the most highest bridge piers in the world. Above picture shows the constriction of such a pier.

This cable stay bridge has a total length of 2.5km and it crosses the Tarn River.




At a time, when I was having  my doubts of my choice of undergraduate studies in the uni, my lost interest triggered back with double power, after seen a presentation of a bridge construction similar to above. Still I can still feel the same and runs it in my veins when I am going through above pictures...........

what's happening in UOM?

This year (2010),the field selections of University of Moratuwa (UOM), SL, have depicted a different trend from its past consistent behavioral pattern. Even though, when considering the whole picture, it cannot be catogorised as a radical change, still it is a very significant change in view of Civil Engineering aspects. It shows that, the modern demand pattern in engineering professional market is slowly but steadily, influencing to more and more bottom levels of the engineering professional’s hierarchy. i.e engineering students.
According to the graph more than 40 students who may have qualified to study Electrical engineering had preferred to study Civil engineering as their choice. Among them nearly 12 students have a better GPA than the lowest GPA student in the Electronic Engineering. Further almost all 40 students have a better GPA than the lowest GPA student in computer science.

This trend is highly welcome to the field of civil engineering where present turbulent market is demanding more and more highly skilled, innovative thinkers to address modern civil engineering dilemmas in environmental, structural and project management issues.

note:purple line: electronic
Green line : computer science
Brown line : civil
Red line : electrical

why this R/F is so heavy???

I thought to start my first blog with a simple but very useful information to civil engineers and technical officers.

I have seen very senior engineers going through their handbooks when they were been asked to calculate the weight of a particular length of a R/F bars. But if you can memorize a simple data, it is totally unnecessary to refer various tables to find the answer to above simple question.

so lets commence with a question. As an example lets think that site person approached you and asked following:
hey mate i have to buy a 20m of length from 16 mm diameter bars,what will be the weight of this??


so here is the formula. you need a very little to remember.

****** 6mm dia bar is 0.222 kg per meter length*****

Answer:
so you can easily calculate weight per 1 m length, for other bar diameters.

(tip: rea of the bar is proportional to square of the diameter)


Hence lets see how to calculate for the above question


ans. (16^2/6^2)*.222*20=31.57Kg



(P.S : during my training period as trainee engineer, Eng.Senadeera ( Sierra) asked me to prepare a bar schedule for the site R/F works.Then he asked me to remember this formula as well. Many thanks goes to him. I still remember his lesson.)