Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

URL : http://civil.kaist.ac.kr/eng/index.html

Summary

Civil and Environmental Engineers are involved in planning, designing, constructing, managing, and maintaining infra-structure systems such as highway systems, railroads, airports, tunnels, bridges, harbors, buildings, dams, offshore structures, manufacturing plants, underground facilities, environmental management systems, water and wastewater treatment systems, and solid waste management. This field also involves study of our land’s preservation, improvement and development, and transforming natural resources such that they can be made useful and convenient for human existence.

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering was established in August 1982. Currently ten professors conduct individual research projects in the fields of structural engineering, geotechnical engineering, and environmental engineering. Extensive interdisciplinary cooperation is pursued through the International Construction Technology Research Center, the Environmental Technology Research Center and the Smart Infra-Structure Technology Center.

Vision and Mission of Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering

The Vision and Mission of the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering is to create a quality education, research and service program designed to achieve goals. The School of Civil and Environmental Engineering educate a new generation of civil and environmental engineers to meet the challenges of the future, promote a sense of scholarship, leadership and service among our graduates, create, develop and disseminate new knowledge, play a leadership role in fostering interdisciplinary education and research programs fundamental to solving the problems a complex society is destined to face and provide national leadership to a civil engineering profession that is increasingly being driven by advances in technology.

Field and research

Structural Engineering

Structural engineering combines science and art to design and build our world’s infrastructure to safely resist natural and man-made forces. Buildings, bridges, stadiums off-shore and other civil facilities define the traditional core focus of structural engineers. At the periphery of the field, structural engineering extends more broadly to share common interests with mechanical, aerospace and naval engineering for the design of often large, complex systems including power plants, pipelines, aerospace vehicles and ships-submarines. Various research activities of dynamics analysis, the seismic analysis and the vibration control of large structures such as bridges, buildings and nuclear power plants, safety and reliability, structural health monitoring, making up the effective structure system through investigating the nonlinear behavior of structures and quantitative analysis of causes of cracking in concrete have performed in four laboratories.

Geotechnical Engineering

Geotechnical engineering deals with soil, rock, and geosynthetics as engineering materials. Geotechnical engineering designs earth- and rock-filled dams, levees, tunnels, braced excavations, and foundations for structures of all types. Geotechnical engineering is also involved in geoenvironmental issues, such as landfill design and performance, contaminant transport through soils, and site remediation. Mitigation of earthquake damage to structures is another important aspect of geotechnical engineering. Knowledge of other fields, such as geology and structural engineering, is required for the geotechnical engineer. Three laboratories have been performing research on analysis, design, construction and maintenance of ground structure related to soft-clay and granite soil, ground earthquake analysis, non-destructive testing using the elastic wave propagation characteristics, and development of geophysical characterization techniques on rocks and to understand the shear behavior of jointed rocks for using large underground spaces.

Environmental Engineering

Environmental engineering find solutions for environmental problems. Environmental engineering provides safe drinking water, treat and properly dispose of wastes, maintain air quality, control water pollution, and remediate sites contaminated due to spills or improper disposal of hazardous substances. Environmental engineering field and environmental engineering education are multi-disciplinary. They involve traditional engineering components such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, and engineering design. But environmental engineering education and practice also includes a range of other disciplines, such as biology, microbiology, ecology, public health, geology, meteorology, economics, political science, and computer science. Fundamental and practical researches on water, wastewater and solid waste treatment by biological approaches in principle, and the water system, water resource and management of environment parts are on investigation at two active laboratories.

Post - Graduation

Our students have proceeded to graduate schools and national research institutions as well as private sector research institutions, and design and construction companies in the construction industry. Our students can complete their national military service requirement through employment at a construction company or research institute, or as a facilities officer in the navy or the air force.