Do you ever wonder what path you would follow to become the chief executive officer (CEO) of a construction company . . . or what steps you might take to become the state bridge engineer? How about a career with a large consulting firm? The first step is to earn a degree in Civil Engineering with emphasis in structural engineering.

Structural engineers deal with a wide variety of issues ranging from choosing the load bearing system and the proper construction material to construction. In between, there are various steps that structural engineers have to tackle such as estimation of loads, preliminary design, conducting structural analysis to determine straining actions, investigation of the physical and mechanical properties of the construction material, producing final plans, details and cost estimates, and preparing bidding documents and construction specifications.

In addition to design of new structures, structural engineers deal with investigation of failures due to natural events such as earthquakes and windstorms.

The structural engineering program of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at The George Washington University has an international reputation for excellence at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It offers excellent opportunities for study and research leading to advanced degrees. Today, this tradition of excellence continues through vigorous programs of basic and applied research, and careful attention to instruction.

The mission of the program at GW is to develop highly qualified engineers who can serve and lead the growing profession of Structural Engineering in academia, industry, government, and consulting, both nationally and internationally.

The Structural Engineering program at GW prepares students to specialize in:

• Design and analysis of steel, reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete structures
• Structural analysis of hybrid structures
• Dynamic analysis of building and highway structures
• Mechanics of continua with emphasis on solids
• Science of materials and materials behavior
• Applied mathematical analysis
• Numerical and finite element analysis

The Civil and Environmental Engineering program at GW is nationally recognized and accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).

The wide variety of courses in structural engineering and applied science, offered in the program, combine research and state-of-the-art industrial practices and technology to groom both graduate and undergraduate students into future leaders of the profession. The faculty in the program provides individual attention to students and mentors the students to develop strong academic, research, and practical skills.

In order to add a practical side to the course material and expose the students to real life problems, the following actions are implemented in most of the design courses:

Technical papers and design projects. Students are required to provide a report of the project and prepare a power point presentation and present it in the class. Please check some of the presentations that were presented by students in the last two years.

• Pre-cast Pre-stressed Concrete Piles
• Concrete Bridges
• The BANG NA Expressway - Thailand

Field trips to construction sites and companies. Please see photos of the CE207 (Prestressed Concrete) visit to Bayshore Company (a precast concrete producer in VA) in 2003.

Seminars:

• Bridge Design Specifications - February 2002
• Welded Wire Reinforcement - November 2003
• Pre-cast Pre-stressed Concrete Structures - February 2004
• Pre-stressed Concrete Institute Bridge Deck - February 2004

Design-build national competitions:

• The ASCE steel bridge competition (Photos coming soon.)

Recently, the CEE department signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Washington DC. Under this agreement, the CEE department and FHWA have the opportunity to be engaged in the following activities:

• Field trips for the CEE undergraduate students to the laboratory facilities of FHWA at the Turner Fairbank Highway Research Center (TFHRC). These trips could include a detailed review of the work being performed in any of the TFHRC’s 25 laboratories.
• GWU/FWHA internship program: where GWU undergraduate students may work in FHWA as interns. Appropriate internships may involve observing and contributing to design and testing, observing highway construction, or learning the economics or marketing of engineering and products.
• Dual oversight of graduate students in CE298, “Independent Study,” where a GWU student registered for this course will be supervised by a CEE faculty member and an FHWA employee.
• Provide mentoring and technical advice, and collaboration with the student volunteers’ advisors, on activities performed at
• TFHRC associated with M.Sc. theses and D.Sc. dissertations. This year, students in the CE196 class (Senior Design Course) are building a concrete beam reinforced with fiber plastic reinforcing bars and testing it at FHWA. (More information and pictures will be available soon.)

• Design and analysis of reinforced and prestressed concrete structures
• Design and analysis of metal structures
• Soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering
• Advanced mechanics and materials science
• Composite materials
• Analysis of plates and shells
• Vibration and stability analysis
• Structural analysis
• Probabilistic methods and random vibrations
• Numerical and finite element methods
• Computer applications
• Mechanics of continua with emphasis on solids
• Applied mathematical analysis

The career potential and placement for GW environmental engineering graduates is very high. The setting of GW in the nation’s capital gives GW graduates a strategic edge over other university graduates. The Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area provides a unique combination of research, practicing, and academic atmosphere. In addition to all Federal Government offices located in this area, a number of the multinational engineering companies are also headquartered in this region with some of the most outstanding research and development facilities in the nation. These include:

• American Petroleum Institute
• Batelle
• Black and Veatch
• HNTB
• NASA Earth Science Enterprise
• National Institute of Standards and Testing
• National Science Foundation
• Parsons
• The World Bank Group
• URS
• US Army Corps of Engineers
• US Department of Energy
• US Department of Transportation
• US Navy (Civil Engineering Corps)
• US Patent and Trademark Office

• Development of innovative performance-based procedures for the design and retrofit of structures
• Use of fiber reinforcement polymers for the structural rehabilitation of structures
• Design and analysis of prestressed and reinforced concrete structures
• Precast concrete structures
• Development of new systems for rapid replacement of bridge decks and girders.
• Design, fabrication, and construction engineering processes
• Applications of artificial intelligence to civil and structural engineering
• Web enhanced teaching of engineering design
• Design of computer-aided tools for civil engineering
• Fatigue and fracture in steel bridges
• Behavior of structural steel joints
• Frame stability
• Nondestructive testing and evaluation of structures

• “NCHRP 12-65: Full-Depth, Precast-Concrete Bridge Deck Panel Systems,” National Academy of Science (NAS)
• “Use of Recent Innovation in Highway Bridge Decks,” Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), TEA-21 Innovative Bridge Research & Construction Program
• “GWU Initiative for Excellence in Transportation Safety and
• Security,” GWU/EVP Office
• “Flexural Analysis of High Performance Concrete Members,” GWU/UFF
• “Utilization of Coal Ash in Concrete Products Used by OPPD,” Omaha Public Power District (OPPD)
• “NEESR-SG Seismic Simulation and Design of Bridge Columns under Combined Actions, and Implications on System Response,” National Science Foundation – NEES.
• “Experimental Study on Seismic Retrofit Techniques for Cap Beams, Columns and their Connections of Highway Bridges,” Alaska Department of Transportation and University Transportation Center (UMR-UTC).
• “NCAC—Honda Visiting Scientist”, Honda R&D Americas Inc
• “K-16 Over Tuttle Creek Fatigue Repair Project”, Kansas Department of Transportation
• “Steel Girder Lateral Stability,” Kansas Department of Transportation
• “Fabrication error Indexed eXamples and Solutions,” Kansas Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration
• “Cost-Effective Design of Bridges on Low-Volume Roads,” Kansas Department of Transportation

Currently the structural engineering group has three full-time faculty members:

Professor Roddis is the Chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at The George Washington University. Professor Roddis received each of her academic degrees (BS, MS, and Ph.D.) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A registered professional engineer, Professor Roddis has experience in heavy industrial and general commercial building design, as well as in bridge design. She is a structural engineer with varied teaching and research interests, which include: design, fabrication, and construction processes; structural applications of artificial intelligence and computer-aided design; web-enhanced teaching; fatigue and fracture in bridges; frame stability; and seismic steel connections. She is recognized nationally as an expert in distortion-induced fatigue of steel highway bridges and internationally as an expert on the application of artificial intelligence and advanced computing methods to civil engineering problem solving. Professor Roddis currently serves as the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) representative on the Board of Directors of the International Society of Computing in Civil and Structural Engineering. She is a fellow of ASCE and active at the national level in ASCE, the American Institute of Steel Construction, and the Transportation Research Board. DR.

Dr. Sameh S. Badie: Dr. Badie Specializes in the area of design and analysis of reinforced and prestressed concrete structures. . His area of specialty is advanced concrete materials (HPC), use of corrosion resistant reinforcement in reinforced concrete structures, application of prestressed concrete in buildings and bridges. Dr. Badie has provided guidance and supervised various projects including the Student Bridge Design Award Competition in 2002 and 2003. He is an author of many publications and received the ACI-structural engineering design award in 2000 for his paper, "Innovative Bridge Panel System A Success". Another of his publications was cited in a survey of PCI (Precast Concrete Institute) JOURNAL readers as one of the top ten useful papers by designers and plant engineers. He is a nationally renowned structural engineering professional and has lead a number of successful research projects.

Dr. Pedro F. Silva: Dr. Silva Specializes in the area of seismic and blast design of civil infrastructures. Other research areas include the development of innovative performance-based procedures for the design and retrofit of structures, and use of fiber reinforcement polymers for the structural rehabilitation of structures. Dr. Silva has approximately 10 years of professional experience in both architectural and structural engineering design practice in the United States. Recently, he was involved in a research project funded by FHWA that was investigating the seismic hazards of existing bridge structures located in the New Madrid Seismic Region, and part of this research project an economic and efficient retrofit scheme using composites was developed that can be used to improve the seismic performance of bridge bents. Most recently, Dr. Silva was funded under an exploratory research grant from the National Science Foundation that deals with design of structures to resist blast loads.

• Material testing, structural component testing, composite and advanced cementatious materials research lab
  
• Contains static and dynamic materials loading equipment, data acquisition systems, and a 400-kip self equilibrium testing frame