Module overview
Learn to design and construct structures, classify soil engineering properties, assess construction environmental impacts, and develop surveying skills. Apply this knowledge through hands-on team projects at the Constructionarium building real structures.
Civil engineering requires practical skills to design sustainable, resilient infrastructure and cities, tackle climate change, and prepare for diverse careers across the civil engineering sector. Civil Engineering Fundamentals introduces students to the world of civil engineering, equipping them with the essential knowledge and practical skills needed to shape the built environment. You will explore how structures carry loads, learn to interpret engineering drawings, and gain experience in project planning, costing, surveying, construction safety, quality management, and engineering materials. Sustainability is embedded throughout the module, you will learn why and how to assess and reduce the carbon impact of construction and contribute to a more resilient future. You will also investigate the geology beneath our infrastructure, developing the skills to classify soils and rocks and understand their engineering behaviour. Through lectures, workshops, geomechanics laboratories and surveying practicals, you will apply theory to real engineering challenges.
The module culminates in the Constructionarium, an intense week-long residential field course where teams construct a real structure using reinforced concrete, timber and steel. Taking on professional roles such as Project Manager, Construction Manager, or Health and Safety Coordinator, you will experience the challenges and rewards of delivering engineering projects while developing leadership, communication and teamwork skills.
Employers highly value the knowledge and experience gained in this module and often applied directly in summer placements and early career opportunities. As the foundation of the degree, this module provides the skills and confidence needed for advanced study in structural, geotechnical and design engineering, as well as future individual and team projects.
Aims and Objectives
Learning Outcomes
Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Evaluate the role of geological processes in ground engineering.
- Explain the procedures used to calculate carbon footprint, water footprint and energy footprint of construction materials and civil engineering projects.
- Describe a range of technical issues associated with geology and geotechnics.
- Appraise technical drawings and their engineering implications.
- Analyse a soil profile and calculate effective stresses in drained and undrained conditions.
- Report progress and expenditure of resources during a construction project.
- Determine normal total and effective stresses, shear stresses and failure planes for simple situations.
Transferable and Generic Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Decision making.
- Apply critical analysis and judgement.
- Communication of ideas.
- Presentation of data and analysis results.
- Time management.
- Planning and time management.
- Group working.
- Numeracy-data interpretation.
- Independent learning.
- Exercising of independent judgment.
- Leadership.
Subject Specific Practical Skills
Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:
- Identify areas of pre-existing slope instability.
- Carry out basic surveying techniques including the use of a level to establish a site datum and use a Total Station for surveying and the basic setting of a site.
- Carry out basic soil and rock description.
- Work Safely.
- Identify geological features seen on field visits.
- Perform a variety of basic construction tasks.
- Effectively communicate using a range of media and methods.
- Compile a method statement for a model construction project and manage the tasks and processes of a construction project.
Knowledge and Understanding
Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:
- Describe geological materials, their origins, distribution and uses.
- Explain procedures for setting up and using surveying instruments.
- Describe geohazards and geotechnical risks.
- Define the principles and techniques of basic land surveying.
- Describe methods of resource reduction and pollution control to reduce negative environmental impacts of civil engineering projects
- Understand importance of team working, leadership and communication in construction.
- Select common site operations with due regard for their capabilities and limitations.
- Model real structures to enable calculation of structural adequacy.
- Explain plate tectonics and the structure of the Earth.
- Detail methods of assessing the accuracy in surveying.
- Explain the approach of footprint analysis and life cycle assessment in civil engineering
- Explain chemical and biological processes of corrosion formation and measures applied for corrosion control.
- Appreciate the importance of environmental sustainability and life cycle thinking to civil engineering
- Explain the importance of groundwater.
- Outline the importance of geology to civil engineering.
- Define common types of loading on structures and structural forms suitable to resist them.
Syllabus
a. Environmental Sustainability
Concept of life cycle thinking
Carbon footprint, water footprint and energy footprint calculation for construction materials and civil engineering projects
Principles of life cycle assessment
Resource recycling to improve environmental performance of civil engineering projects
Pollution control to improve environental performance of civil engineering projects
b.. Geology for engineers
The structure of the earth, plate tectonics, continental drift and their engineering implications
Geohazards and geotechnical risks
The origins, distribution and variability of a range of geomaterials
Properties of geomaterials with importance for construction
Groundwater
Effective stress and Mohr’s circles and soil strength
Laboratory classes: Engineering description of soils and rocks; Classification and index testing of soils
Field visits: Two full-day field trips will be organised to the Isle of Wight and the Dorset coast.
c. Construction
Surveying
•Map projections and datums
•Levelling
•Use of theodolites.
•Total station and distance measurements.
•Setting out.
Quantitative design, related to Constructionarium
•Common types of loading on structures.
•Idealisation of real structures to enable calculation.
•Calculation of structural adequacy of steel and reinforced concrete structures and shallow foundations
Constructionarium field course
•Interpreting drawings, including taking off quantities.
•Construction planning (method statements, task lists, programming).
•Health, safety, welfare and the environment in construction.
•Construction practice (excavation, reinforcement, formwork, concrete, steel erection, final finishing, temporary works).
•Project management techniques (cost estimates, monitoring progress against plan, adapting plan to unforeseen events).
Learning and Teaching
Teaching and learning methods
This module will be delivered through a combination of the following:
•Lectures for the delivery of new material and concepts.
•Tutorial sessions for the discussion of topics, support for student learning by means of examples, and to support project development.
•Practical Classes, Workshops and Fieldwork to develop understanding and skills through practical application.
•Student presentations to develop communication skills.
•Self-paced/ online course material to support independent learning.
•Field visits
•Individual and group work.
Environmental Sustainability:
For Environmental Sustainability, teaching methods will involve lectures.
Geology:
For Geology, teaching methods will comprise lectures, supported by 2 one-day field visits and 2 laboratory classes. Students produce reports on the field visits and laboratory classes, which are assessed and on which feedback is given.
Construction:
You will start with a series of lectures and practical exercises in surveying. This key civil Engineering skill will be employed at the constructionarium later in the year. A series of lectures in semester 1 will give an overview of the constructionairum projects and associated tasks and skills required. You will also learn about more detailed structural form and key mechanical principles of each project.
There will be a series of lectures on construction methods, health and safety risk management, with particular emphasis on the Constructionarium. Project groups are allocated by course tutors.
Shortly before the constructionarium there will be the final set of tasks including a short course to learn how to set out your structures using a modern theodolite or total station. Finally there is a briefing day which includes a health and safety briefing, planning management and team working exercises to ensure you work effectively as a group. Attendance for this briefing day is COMPULSORY.
The Constructionarium residential field course takes place at the end of semester 2 over 5 days (plus one day of travelling) at the National construction college at Bircham Newton in Norfolk.
| Type | Hours |
|---|---|
| Wider reading or practice | 37 |
| Fieldwork | 56 |
| Completion of assessment task | 88 |
| Tutorial | 1 |
| Supervised time in studio/workshop | 12 |
| Lecture | 54 |
| Preparation for scheduled sessions | 32 |
| Seminar | 6 |
| Practical classes and workshops | 14 |
| Total study time | 300 |
Assessment
Assessment strategy
The learning outcomes of this module will be assessed under the Part I Assessment Schedule for FEE Engineering Programmes which forms an Appendix to your Programme Specification. Feedback will be available on the formative work undertaken during the module.Summative
This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.
| Method | Percentage contribution |
|---|---|
| Continuous Assessment | 100% |
Repeat Information
Repeat type: Internal