Project to design a bridge, dam, and water tower for specific locations.

In this semester long project, students design a bridge, dam, and water tower for specific locations. Students comment on the technical, economic, and societal considerations in regards to the various sub-disciplines of civil engineering. Villanova implemented this project in a Mechanics course with 60 students.

The project consists of six worksheets; each requiring individual work, group discussion, and instructor facilitation for 25 minutes of class. The bridge design challenges students to create an infrastructure for Philadelphia, and the water tower must store and supply water for a rural village of 500 people in a randomly selected developing country. Student groups are tasked with developing a summary design, construction, and maintenance plan for each infrastructure challenge. This project could be implemented by anyone looking to bring real engineering constraints from the developing world into a Mechanics or Statics course.

1. Apply selected vector operations to two or more vectors.
2. Solve various types of 2-D and 3-D equilibrium problems.
3. Analyze statically determinate trusses.
4. Calculate selected properties of an area or volume including centroid and moment of inertia about a given axis.
5. Calculate internal normal and shear stresses.
6. Develop the stress-strain relationships for and discuss key characteristics of various steels.
7. Compute elongations in axially loaded members.
8. Calculate the buckling load for axially loaded columns.
9. Solve simple particle dynamics problems involving dry friction.
10. Produce professional quality calculations that are neat and well organized.