Process of Designing a Civil Engineering Project - Part 1 of 5
Planning and designing a civil engineering project is a complex task which requires expert knowledge and strategic decision making skills. Engineering judgement plays a key role throughout the entire designing process. It is important to understand the level of responsibility the design engineers hold and the risks associated with executing these challenging engineering tasks. Proper investigations, analyses and planning works must be accomplished prior to initiating the construction phase. Most of the undergraduate courses in civil engineering has a design component where the students are required to present a holistic design to real world scenario. This series of articles discusses the process of designing a civil engineering project. All the major activities carried out in the 'planning and designing' stage are explained in a detailed manner. The design process can be elaborated in ten steps; each step having one or more clear outcomes. In this article, the first thre...