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Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.

Print Price: $13.50

Format:
Paperback
144 pp.
approximately 18 b/w illustrations, 111 mm x 174 mm

ISBN-13:
9780199578634

Publication date:
October 2012

Imprint: OUP UK


Civil Engineering: A Very Short Introduction

David Muir Wood

Series : Very Short Introductions

Civil engineering produces the structures of all human settlements worldwide and is a vital discipline for many aspects modern life, underlying housing, transport, and our major areas and buildings related to work, study, and leisure.

In this Very Short Introduction, David Muir Wood demonstrates the nature and importance of civil engineering not only in the history of civilization and urbanization, but its range of facets today, and its challenges for the future. Beginning with the challenge of creating a settlement on a deserted island, which sets out the problems that civil engineers need to solve, he looks at the social and environmental considerations as well as the science, technology, and craft of building bridges, tunnels, houses, and areas of recreation.

He highlights the lives of some major civil engineers, including Brunel and Bazalgette, considers the challenges of managing water and energy, and looks at our increasing sensitivity to building and the environment.

Readership : An ideal introduction to civil engineering for the general reader and students of engineering, science, and technology.

1. Civil engineering
2. Materials of civil engineering
3. Water and waste
4. 'Directing the great sources of power in nature'
5. Concept - technology - realisation
6. Robustness
7. The future
Further reading

There are no Instructor/Student Resources available at this time.

David Muir Wood is Emeritus Professor of Civil Engineering at the University of Bristol and Professor of Geotechnical Engineering, University of Dundee. He is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Special Features

  • Highlights the impact civil engineering has on all parts of life - buildings related to work, study, and leisure.
  • A broad introduction to the discipline of civil engineering.
  • Examines the nature and importance of civil engineering in the history of civilization and urbanization.
  • Explores its challenges for the future - managing water and energy and our sensitivity to buildings and the environment.
  • Part of the best-selling Very Short Introductions series - over five million copies sold worldwide.