World's Top Ten Famous Civil Engineers

Civil engineers are responsible for creating and designing bridges, buildings, roadways, and other pieces of infrastructure that are important within a society. Great designers and architects, there are some names that really stand out in this field. Continue reading to learn about ten famous civil engineers and what their inventions have brought to the world.

1. Henry Larcom Abbot- A military engineer, he served in the U.S. Army Engineers. He was responsible for creating the Army's Engineer School of Application and his influence can be seen in a lot of elements of the coast defense systems of the U.S., especially in the submarine mine system, and in the employment of seacoast mortars.

How to Become a Civil Engineer

Civil engineering education begins long before college, with the classes that the potential civil engineer takes in high school. Yet, it may start even earlier that that, with the structures which the future civil engineer makes out of Lego™ Blocks; seeing how high a tower they can build and how long a bridge they can create. While many children like building with blocks, there’s something different about how the child who is destined to be a civil engineer builds.

Civil engineering, like all engineering disciplines, is a science. Therefore, the student who wants to study to be a civil engineer needs to study math and the sciences, long before entering college. Algebra, trigonometry, chemistry and physics all play a part in the daily work of the civil engineer. Taking these classes in high-school and doing well in them, prepares the student for their studies in college.

Another very important area of study, although classes aren’t offered for it, is problem solving. Like all types of engineering, civil engineering is about solving problems. The engineer is presented with a problem and expected to find a solution for it. Whether that problem is spanning a river, stopping coastal erosion, providing water for farmers in arid climates or preventing a building from falling in an earthquake, everything a civil engineer does is problem solving.

History of Civil Engineering

History of the civil engineering profession

Leonhard Euler developed the theory of buckling of columns

Engineering has been an aspect of life since the beginnings of human existence. The earliest practice of civil engineering may have commenced between 4000 and 2000 BC in Ancient Egypt andMesopotamia (Ancient Iraq) when humans started to abandon a nomadic existence, creating a need for the construction of shelter. During this time, transportation became increasingly important leading to the development of the wheel and sailing.

Until modern times there was no clear distinction between civil engineering and architecture, and the term engineer and architect were mainly geographical variations referring to the same person, often used interchangeably.^[7] The construction of Pyramids in Egypt (circa 2700–2500 BC) might be considered the first instances of large structure constructions. Other ancient historic civil engineering constructions include the Qanat water management system (the oldest older than 3000 years and longer than 71 km,) the Parthenon by Iktinos in Ancient Greece (447–438 BC), the Appian Way byRoman engineers (c. 312 BC), the Great Wall of China by General Meng T'ien under orders from Ch'in Emperor Shih Huang Ti (c. 220 BC)and the stupas constructed in ancient Sri Lanka like theJetavanaramaya and the extensive irrigation works in Anuradhapura. The Romans developed civil structures throughout their empire, including especially aqueducts, insulae, harbors, bridges, dams and roads.

About Civil Engineering

What is Civil Engineering ? Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges,canals, dams, and buildings.Civil engineering is the oldest engineering discipline after military engineering,and it was defined to distinguish non-military engineering from military engineering.It is traditionally broken into several sub-disciplines including environmental engineering, geotechnical engineering, geophysics, geodesy, control engineering, structural engineering, transportation engineering, earth science, atmospheric sciences, forensic engineering, municipal or urban engineering, water resources engineering, materials engineering, offshore engineering, quantity surveying, coastal engineering,surveying, and construction engineering.Civil engineering takes place on all levels: in the public sector from municipal through to national governments, and in the private sector from individual homeowners through to international companies.