Topic Proposal

As a civil engineering, I must be concerned about the health of the

public. In order to understand and comprehend more what does it mean
to protect the public, I would like to research about the risk that new
materials, such as composite materials, affect the stability
configuration of a structure. I quoted new materials because sometimes
structure are made of materials that civil engineers have used before,
but not for a specific structure, for example, lets say that aluminum
beams have been used only in building designs, what would happen if a
civil engineering decides to use aluminum beam on a bridge? What risk
does it impose to society? What advantages and disadvantages does it
have? In essence my topic proposal is to investigate how civil engineers
make decision on how to use certain materials for certain types of
structure and how they optimize their strength and their stability without
affecting the public health.