Republic of the Philippines

DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

PHILIPPINE SCIENCE HIGH SCHOOL SYSTEM

Subject Code ENGINEERING Selected Topics in Engineering

Module Code 1.0 Branches and Fields of Engineering

Lesson Code 1.2 Four Main Branches of Engineering – Civil Engineering

Time Limit 30 minutes

TARGET (Time allocation: 1 minute) Actual time allocation: _____ minutes

By the end of this module, the student should be able to:

1. Identify the fields related to civil engineering.
2. Discuss the contributions of the different civil engineering fields to society.
3. Differentiate the various fields under civil engineering.

HOOK (Time allocation: 2 minutes) Actual time allocation: _____ minutes

A toast to one of the most common engineering degree program and professional career in the
Philippines!

Do you still remember the devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan, locally named Yolanda, back in
November 2013? Because of the devastation that this typhoon caused, existing weather bulletins and
building codes were revisited, studied and updated. In one of those ventures, civil engineers from UP
Diliman who were specializing in wind engineering managed to come up with values of its sustained
winds and discussed in the study of Agar and Hernandez (2017). The group used windicators, or
objects affected in the area, as one of the core materials of the study. The windicator found by the
team was a bent flagpole which was not struck by any other materials as evidenced by lack of dents
and scratches, but only by wind.

Know more about these great feats of civil engineering as we discover its related fields!

IGNITE (Time allocation: 15 minutes) Actual time allocation: _____ minutes

In the previous lesson, you were introduced to civil engineering, the purpose of which is rooted on
civilian matters such as building structures in the form of bridges, highways, sanitation systems, even
whole cities. The key term really is “civilian”, wherein the focus of civil engineering has to do with
their well-being. Through the following discussion, we’ll look at fields under civil engineering
available in the Philippines and abroad.

The following fields and respective main definitions were based on the definitions by the Civil
Engineering Bible (https://civilengineeringbible.com). The core branches of civil engineering can be
divided into six categories: structural, geotechnical, transportation, water resources, environmental,
and construction planning & management.

College Trivia! The University of the Philippines’ Institute of Civil Engineering subdivides their

Selected Topics in Engineering – Grade 11 or 12 – Page 1 of 9

curriculum and student track in the very same way.

Civil Engineering Branches (civilengineeringbible.com)

Structural Engineering is the branch responsible for design of structures and their corresponding
analysis. A design must satisfy the project specifications while maintaining to keep to all safety
regulations.

Structural engineering analysis using Etabs

There are four major specializations available under structural engineering:

a. Earthquake Engineering - responsible for the behavior of structures subjected to seismic
loading
b. Wind Engineering - responsible for the analysis of wind and its effect on the built
environment
c. Architectural Engineering - responsible for the application of engineering principles to
building design and construction

Selected Topics in Engineering – Grade 11 or 12 – Page 2 of 9

 d. Ocean Engineering - responsible for the design of offshore structures

Geotechnical Engineering is the branch responsible for the study of soil, foundations, and bearing
capacities. Here, the engineer has to study the behavior of earth materials such as soil, gravel, clay and
water, and the effect they will have on a structure to be constructed. Pre-existing structures may also
need the help of geotechnical engineering when signs of issues occur with earth materials under or
near the structure.

Model of terrain used by mining and geotechnical engineers in Autodesk® AutoCAD® 3D

software

There are two major specializations available under geotechnical engineering:

a. Mining Engineering - responsible for the exploration, extraction and processing of raw
materials from the Earth
b. Foundation Engineering - responsible for the engineering of below ground foundations
which support superstructures

Transportation Engineering is the branch responsible for planning, construction and management of
transportation facilities. Engineers design and implement the infrastructures related to transportation
to provide a safe, comfortable, convenient, economical and environmentally compatible mode of
transport. Countries which have the resources to tap unto all modes of transportation usually has six
divisions in transportation engineering: highway, air, waterway, aerospace, coastal and ocean, and
urban.

Selected Topics in Engineering – Grade 11 or 12 – Page 3 of 9

 Traffic situation in Metro Manila as one of the problems faced by transportation engineering (Photo
by www.megacitizens.com)

There are three major specializations available under transportation engineering:

a. Traffic Engineering - responsible for the focus on infrastructure necessary for
transportation
b. Highway Engineering - responsible for major roadways and systems involving
automobiles, mainly through the design and construction of highways
c. Railway Engineering - responsible for systems that involve the use of rails as
passageway, such as trains and trams

Water Resources Engineering is the branch responsible with the design and construction of
hydraulic structures, such as dams, canals, and water distribution systems. Engineers are responsible
also towards the implementation and safety precautions that must be adhered to in dealing with
hydraulic structures.

Angat Dam as a vital life line in Metro Manila (Photo by ACJ Rosales)

Selected Topics in Engineering – Grade 11 or 12 – Page 4 of 9

There are four major specializations available under water resources engineering:
a. Hydraulic Engineering - responsible for the concerns with the flow and conveyance of fluids,
principally water, by designing pipelines, water supply network, drainage facilities, and
canals
b. River Engineering - responsible for planned human intervention in the course, characteristic,
or flow of the river towards some form of benefit, such as managing water resources,
protecting against flood or making passage across/along the river
c. Coastal Engineering - responsible for the study of processes ongoing at the shoreline and
construction within coastal zone, oftentimes focused against erosion of coast or provision of
navigational access
d. Groundwater Engineering - responsible for analysis, monitoring and modeling of groundwater
source to better understand the remaining amount and whether these can be used for
recharging reservoirs or priding for irrigation

Environmental Engineering is the branch responsible with the designs and plans that are
environment-friendly, resolves pollution issues and manages sewages.

There are three major specializations available under environmental engineering here in the
Philippines:
a. Sanitary Engineering - responsible for the application of engineering methods to improve
sanitation of human communities.
TRIVIA! In the Philippines, sanitary and environmental engineers have the same
Philippine Regulatory Commission (PRC) Board Examination for the license.
b. Wastewater Engineering - responsible for determining and providing the best way to
transport and/or collect rainwater for human populations. Included in their tasks are
transporting and cleaning of blackwater, greywater and irrigation water. Primary concerns
of wastewater engineers are the wastewater treatment and water reclamation. MWSS or
Metropolitan Waterworks and Sewerage System in the National Capital Region is the
government agency tasked in overseeing these concerns.
c. Municipal or Urban Engineering - responsible for municipal issues that includes water
and waste management, transportation networks, subdivisions and hydraulics. They are
the civil engineers you encounter in the municipal or city halls, to whom residents and
developers may inquire regarding the plans set for the municipality.

Construction Engineering is the branch responsible with the planning, construction and maintenance
of structures. According to the Bureau of Local Employment (n.d.) under the Department of Labor
and Employment (DOLE), demand for civil engineers depend on the state of the construction
industry. The civil engineers in the Philippines can then be seen as mostly related to construction.

NAVIGATE (Time allocation: 10 minutes) Actual time allocation: _____ minutes

To complete our lesson, watch the clip below and write down the notable “civil engineers” and their
respective works.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xbtnz4wdaA

The video lasts for 8 minutes and 54 seconds.

Transcript of Youtube Video subtitles was downloaded using https://savesubs.com/ extract and
download tool.

Selected Topics in Engineering – Grade 11 or 12 – Page 5 of 9

– Start of Transcript –
“The building you were born in, the one where you work, and every road you’ve ever
traveled, and every bridge you’ve ever crossed – they’re all the creations of civil engineers.
Civil engineering is one of the most ancient types of engineering, focused on structures and
buildings of all kinds. And it’s the accomplishments of civil engineering that our world is
built on. Literally. Society wouldn’t be the same without them.

If you want to think like a civil engineer, imagine that you’ve just discovered an island – a
place that no other human had ever seen or set foot on. Like any good explorer, you check out
this mysterious island, to see what it has to offer, as well as what it lacks.

Is there food available? And if so, where does it grow? What about the water supply? What’s
the weather like? Is the terrain easy enough to travel over? Let’s say that after answering all
of these questions, you decide that the island is habitable. So, what if you tried to build a city
there? What kinds of structures would you need? How would you build them? And would it
matter what order you build them in? How do you plan an entire city? Well, before you rush
into anything, you should take a moment to learn a thing or two from the civil engineers that
came before us.

We’ve been using some kind of civil engineering for most of our history. We’ve built shelters
to protect ourselves from the weather and used tree trunks as makeshift bridges to cross
rivers. Our earliest ancestors probably weren’t doing any calculations, but they were using
engineering to find solutions to their problems.

And we can find one of the world’s first notable civil engineers about 5,000 years ago in
Egypt. This is where we meet Imhotep, the planner of the first Egyptian pyramid. He was a
government official, a sage, and even eventually worshipped as the Egyptian god of medicine.
And to that already impressive resume, we can add the title “chief of works”, or what we’d
call him, “engineer.” Imhotep helped oversee the building of the Step Pyramid of Saqqara,
constructed in the 27th century BCE. The limestone-based pyramid was about as tall as a
modern 18-story building, at around 60 meters, or 200 feet high. And its design and
construction helped pave the way for other great civil engineering marvels like the Great
Pyramid of Giza.

This was where we really saw the first two fields of civil engineering come together:
structural engineering and construction engineering. Both are similar, but structural
engineering focuses more on the design and framework of structures, while construction
engineering is more involved with actually building the structure. We’re going to need to use
both of these disciplines if we’re to have any hope of creating a city on our island. Let’s
suppose we use Imhotep’s blueprints and build a few pyramids here.

After that, let’s move on to something that we’ll definitely need: a public water supply. For
this, we can find inspiration in Mesopotamia around the year 691 BCE. This was where the
Aqueduct of Jerwan, one of the world’s first notable public water works, was built by
Assyrian engineers. It was made of millions of stones to carry water from the mountains to
the city of Nineveh. Since having water will be crucial to our city, we’ll want a public water

Selected Topics in Engineering – Grade 11 or 12 – Page 6 of 9

supply, too, and a more modern aqueduct system of pipes and tunnels to carry water to homes
and buildings.

And speaking of thinking ahead! If you want to learn how to actually map out your future
community, you have to learn from Hippodamus of Miletus. He lived in Greece around 460
BCE, and can be called the father of city planning. Much of what we know about him comes
from Aristotle’s work, known as Politics. Aristotle thought Hippodamus was weird, because
he wore his hair long and wore flashy jewelry with cheap clothes. But even Aristotle would
agree that Hippodamus was also extremely influential. Many aspects of urban design that we
now take for granted – like rectangular city blocks and straight streets with avenues at right
angles – can all be attributed to him. In fact, this layout is often known as the Hippodamian
plan, and it also involves dividing up cities into different parts for different purposes. This
was very different from previous designs in his day, which often involved streets that curved,
twisted, or ran into dead ends.

So, let this be a lesson for your island community: If you’re gonna build a city, you need a
plan. And if you don’t plan ahead in civil engineering projects, you could end up with things
in all the wrong places. After all, you don’t want farms and crops near sewage treatment
plants, or schools next to a noisy airport.

Now, we should also take a page from the Ancient Romans. They were some of the greatest
engineers of the past, with roads, tunnels, bridges, and plenty of aqueducts and water supplies
throughout their lands. Their works are great examples of the third field of civil engineering:
transportation. Good infrastructure will let you use as much of the island as you can, for
example, roads that run over hills and valleys, and bridges for crossing lakes and rivers. Part
of what made Romans so prolific in their city designs was the clever use of their environment.
They mixed lime, small rocks, and volcanic ash to make their own form of concrete, which
allowed them to build impressive structures like the Pantheon and the Colosseum.

Since I don’t see many volcanoes on our island, we should stick with a more modern kind of
concrete, like the one patented in early 19th century England by Joseph Aspdin. He used
finely ground stone and clay to make what he called “Portland cement” because of its
resemblance to the limestone of Portland, England.

But there are few better lessons in the importance of building materials than the Eddystone
Lighthouse. The tale of this structure begins at England’sEddystone Rocks in the late 17th
century. And like most great engineering stories, it started with a problem: The rocks, off the
coast of Cornwall, were causing lots of shipwrecks. Henry Winstanley was a painter, builder
and merchant who lost two ships on these rocks. So he built a lighthouse on them. It was
octagonal, made of wood, and lasted for a few years until a storm came through and destroyed
it.

But another builder soon constructed a second lighthouse, also made of wood. This one lasted
for around 50 years, but was then burned to the ground from the spark of a candle, a reminder
of how susceptible wooden structures are to fire. It became apparent that the wood wasn’t
working for this lighthouse, so a new generation of engineers had to do something different.

Selected Topics in Engineering – Grade 11 or 12 – Page 7 of 9

 That’s where John Smeaton came in. Instead of wood, he began building a lighthouse in 1756
made from hydraulic lime, a type of concrete that sets under water. This allowed for his
lighthouse to last for more than 120 years, until 1877, when it was dismantled because the
rocks beneath the tower were beginning to destabilize. But Smeaton’s success in meeting this
challenge set the stage for using cement and concrete in structural building. Smeaton is
actually the first to label himself as a “civil engineer”.

And ever since, engineers have had him to thank for separating the civilian side of
engineering from the military side. We’ll also want to thank him for the lighthouse we’re
going to build on the south side of our island to warn travelers of the dangerous reef.

So up to this point, we have a pretty good start to our island city. We’ve planned it out with
public water supplies, roads and bridges, a lighthouse, and other buildings. But we’re missing
something very important: sanitation. Some form of sanitation has been used since ancient
times.

But a more modern form of environmental engineering began when Sir Joseph William
Bazalgette designed a sewer network for central London. His network helped relieve the city
of its cholera epidemic by treating the water and cleansing the polluted River Thames, which
took nearly 20 years to complete, and he was eventually knighted for his work.

This all led to the continued practice of treating drinking water and sewage, which will be
crucial to maintaining public health on our island. There are still more things that civil
engineering can do for our city, like the construction of dams and canals, which falls under
hydraulic engineering.

And then there’s working with the rock and soil of the Earth so our structures are built on the
right foundation, which is the work of geotechnical engineers.

So the idea of creating a city from an empty patch of wilderness shows you how many
problems present themselves, and how different kinds of civil engineering can solve those
problems.

We’ve achieved civilizations – whole societies– because of civil engineering.”

– End of Transcript –

KNOT (Time allocation: 2 minutes) Actual time allocation: _____ minutes

In this lesson, you were presented with six branches of civil engineering along with their major
specializations. These 6 branches are structural, geotechnical, transportation, water resources,
environmental and construction.

In the following lesson, we’ll take a closer look at specialization fields under the branch of mechanical
engineering.

Selected Topics in Engineering – Grade 11 or 12 – Page 8 of 9

References:
Agar, J. & Hernandez, J. (2017). Estimating Typhoon Haiyan's Wind Speeds Using Windicators and
PostStorm Wind Vulnerability Analysis on the Affected Areas. Retrieved from
https://wsbe17hongkong.hk/_bin/ckfinder/userfiles/files/Paper/P_1265-
1279%20Estimating%20Typhoon%20Haiyan%27s%20Wind%20Speeds.pdf

Civil Engineer (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.ble.dole.gov.ph/index.php/cg/39-civil-engineer

CrashCourse. (2018, May 24). Civil Engineering: Crash Course Engineering #2 [Video]. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xbtnz4wdaA

Full Description of Civil Engineering Branches (n.d.).

https://civilengineeringbible.com/article.php?i=35

Prepared by: JOHN DEE A. MANGOBA Reviewed by: BOBBY U. ARGOTE II

Position: Special Science Teacher III Position: Special Science Teacher IV

Campus: PSHS-IRC Campus: PSHS-CVC

Selected Topics in Engineering – Grade 11 or 12 – Page 9 of 9