U of U General Catalog - CIVIL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING

The undergraduate program in Civil Engineering is accredited by the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).

Department Office: 104 Energy and Minerals Research Office, (phone) 581-6931, (fax) 585-5477

Mailing Address: 122 S. Central Campus Dr., Rm. 104, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0561

Assistant Professors. S. Bartlett, S. Burian, W. Cottrell, S. Perica, P. Romero.

Adjunct Professors. W. Grenney, W. Harrison, Y. Lin, R. Lloyd, S. Miller, G. Sandquist, S. Swanson.

Adjunct Associate Professors. F. Bruenger, S. Chaudhuri, C. Forster, J. Lighty, J. Thompson, E. Trujillo.

Research Professors. D. Eckhoff, R. Levey, J. Moore, M. Nemcok, D. Nielson, R. Ressetar, M. Ridd, D. Slaughter, P. Wannamaker.

Research Associate Professors. A. Gary, G. Nash, E. Platon, P. Sikora, J. Stodt.

Research Assistant Professors. R. Adams, E. Dudley-Murphy, C. Elliott, R. Howe, K. Johnson.

Advisers. Undergraduates, all faculty, 104 EMRO, 581-6931; Graduates, Evert Lawton, 109 EMRO, 585-3947.

The Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering offers undergraduate and graduate programs that prepare students for careers in industry, consulting, research, and government.

Civil and Environmental Engineering encompasses a wide range of planning, design, and construction activities dealing with buildings, bridges, dams, highways, transportation systems, water supply, fluid flow, water reclamation, and geotechnical engineering problems. An integral part of studies in the department is an emphasis on environmental engineering. Physical, chemical, and biochemical processes are applied to environmental problems of prevention and remediation.

The department conducts research in the areas of composite materials, geotechnical engineering, earthquake engineering, structures, transportation and traffic engineering, environmental engineering, water resource engineering, and nuclear engineering.

Research and training facilities include laboratories for environmental engineering, nuclear engineering, geotechnical engineering, hydrology, and structural engineering.

Curriculum changes may take place after publication of this catalog. A booklet containing current information is available from the departmental office prior to the beginning of Fall Semester. It is essential that students obtain up-to-date information each year on changes in requirements and curriculum. Announcements regarding changes in requirements are also posted on the web.

Prerequisites. The level at which Civil and Environmental Engineering students begin their studies depends on how much high school preparation they have had. To complete the engineering curriculum in four years, entering students must begin the first semester with MATH 1210.

Repeating Courses. If a student registers for a course more than once, the grade earned the second time is used to compute the GPA upon which intermediate status, major status, and graduation decisions are based. Registration is counted for courses in which the grade received is W, V, I, CR, or NC.

Faculty Advisers. Once students are classified as Pre-Civil status, they are eligible to be assigned to a faculty adviser. The faculty adviser will help students with curriculum problems they may be having, and will review and approve or deny all status applications and petitions. The adviser must also sign the graduation review sheet. To be assigned to a faculty adviser, see the Academic Program Specialist in the department offices (108 EMRO).

Pre-Civil Engineering. Incoming students are classified as Pre-Civil Engineering majors until they qualify for intermediate status. Students normally apply for intermediate status at the end of their freshman year. Pre-Civil Engineering students are not permitted to enroll in engineering courses beyond the freshman-level (1000-1990).

Intermediate Major Status. Intermediate status in Civil and Environmental Engineering identifies students who have successfully completed freshman-level subjects and are thus qualified to take other lower-division courses in Engineering. (See Engineering in the Colleges, Schools, and Divisions section of this catalog.) Students may apply for intermediate status in Civil and Environmental Engineering after satisfactorily completing at least 15 credit hours from a prescribed list of freshman-level courses issued by the department. Applications for intermediate status are reviewed by the student's faculty adviser, with admission decisions based on the student’s GPA earned in courses listed on the application form and available department resources. Students must maintain a 2.50 GPA in the intermediate courses listed on their status application to be approved. Students admitted to intermediate status may take 2000-level Engineering courses. Higher-level courses are closed to intermediate-status students.

Full Major Status. Civil Engineering major status is required to complete the upper division course work required for the B.S. degree in Civil Engineering. To become a Civil Engineering major, intermediate students must submit an application to the department on a form available in the department office indicating satisfactory completion of a prescribed list of courses. This list includes courses on the intermediate list as well as additional lower-division courses in mathematics, science, and Civil and Environmental Engineering.

Applications for major status are reviewed by the student's faculty adviser, with admissions decisions based on available department resources and the student's GPA in courses listed on the application form. Students must maintain a 2.50 GPA in the major courses listed on their status application to be approved. Applications for major status may be submitted by intermediate students who complete at least 33 credit hours of course work from the list of courses.

Once admitted as a Civil Engineering major, a student must maintain an acceptable GPA and meet certain graduation requirements.

Transfer Students. After being officially accepted by the University, students transferring from at other institutions in the state of Utah (or BYU in Idaho) need to obtain an articulation sheet from the department office to evaluate which classes automatically will be accepted by the Civil and Environmental Engineering program.

Based on their academic records, such students may qualify for intermediate or major status. Associates degrees do not automatically fulfill the department’s requirements.

Students transferring from an institution outside the state of Utah must submit an out-of-state course evaluation form and submit it to the department office to be evaluated by a faculty committee. No transfer credit is evaluated during the first week of classes.

Suggested Program. The outline below is a suggested program of study for the B.S. degree in Civil Engineering. Required courses are designated by course numbers. A minimum of 128.5 credit hours is required for graduation.

Technical Electives.
Technical electives are arranged and numbered (as shown below) by field of study. A minimum of four courses are required, with at least two courses taken from those designated as containing substantial design content. Students wishing to take a 7000-level course may do so only with prior permission from the instructor and Graduate Studies Committee.

An extra technical elective may be taken in place of either, CVEEN 3320, Geotechnical Engineering II, or CVEEN 3620 Environmental Engineering II. Only one of these courses may be replaced with an extra technical elective. This course may be taken from any of the listed courses.

Structures and Geotechnical
CVEEN	5210 5220* 5230* 5240* 5310* 5330	Structural Analysis II Concrete Design II Steel Design II Masonry/Timber Design Foundation Engineering Soil Dynamics

* contains substantial design content
^ Only one course, of the required 4 courses, may be taken from this area. This rule does not apply to CVEEN 5260, Applied Probability and Statistics, CVEEN 5110, and GIS in CVEEN.

Graduation Requirements. Prior to Fall Semester 1998, the University of Utah was on the quarter system. Undergraduate students, who had intermediate or major status in the department when the university converted to the semester system, may elect to graduate according to the quarter system requirements that were in place at the time of the conversion. Undergraduate students who are eligible to use the quarter system requirements and elect to do so, must graduate by Spring Semester 2005. Degree candidates must be registered in the department as Civil Engineering majors for at least four consecutive semesters before graduation, unless exempted by the department.

Advancement to both intermediate and major status is required to graduate in Civil Engineering. All students must maintain a minimum GPA of 2.50 in courses listed on the graduation review sheet in order to graduate.

All students are required to pass the national Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) examination before they graduate.

For general University graduation requirements, see Graduation Requirements in the Undergraduate Information section of this catalog.

Writing. All students must take WRTG 2010 (international students must complete ESL 1060) before they may achieve intermediate status in Civil and Environmental Engineering. CVEEN 3100 must be taken to fulfill the University's upper-division writing requirement, and must be taken before a student may achieve major status.

Fastrax integrated B.S. to M.E. or M.S. Degree Program. The Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering offers an integrated Bachelor to Master's track in its program especially designed for those students with a 3.2 G.P.A. or higher who opt to continue on to a Masters degree at an accelerated rate. In addition, the "Fastrax" program allows the student an introduction to research or project development during their undergraduate program and an additional measure of flexibility in designing their undergraduate curriculum. The degree can be completed in one additional year (including one summer) beyond the typical completion time for the Bachelors degree. Details for the program and application forms can be obtained in the Civil & Environmental Engineering offices, 108 EMRO.

Students may elect to obtain an interdisciplinary M.E., M.S., or Ph.D. degree in Environmental Engineering through the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering. Admissions and degree requirements for the Environmental Engineering Graduate Program are specific to that program. Please contact the Environmental Engineering Graduate Program administrator for details (see catalog description under Environmental Engineering). In addition, M.E., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in nuclear engineering are offered. Details on the Nuclear Engineering Program are available from David M. Slaughter, 581-8499. For additional information on all degree programs, see the Graduate Information section of this catalog.

Areas of Specialization. Bioremediation, anaerobic processes, solid and radioactive hazardous waste treatment, biomass energy, resource recovery, physicochemical processes, environmental engineering, nuclear engineering, radiation protection, health physics, remediation of organic and heavy metal contaminants, water and soil quality, water quality assessment.

Water resources, hydrology, ecosystem modeling, wetlands restoration and creation, remediation of contaminated sediments, automated systems, water resources management, sediment transport, multiphase flow, snow avalanches.

Geotechnical engineering, soil improvement and stabilization, collapsible soils, geosynthetics, geoenvironmental characterization of aquifer and reservoir heterogeneity, examining geochemical regimes associated with groundwater flow systems and petroleum reservoirs, numerical simulation of groundwater flow and petroleum production, GIS applications for diverse spatial databases, applications of structural analysis and geological mapping for assessing geohazards.

Transportation engineering, infrastructure management systems, pavement engineering, real-time adaptive traffic control systems, transportation modeling, congestive management, transportation risk management.

Steel and concrete engineering, structural dynamics as applied to building systems with emphasis on earthquake engineering and vibration problems, structural control, structural optimization, reliability engineering, computer-aided analysis and design, bridge engineering, system reliability of steel connections, finite element modeling of steel connections, rehabilitation using composite materials.

Admission. Applicants should have a previous degree in one of the branches of Engineering, the sciences, or a related field. Graduate students without a previous degree in Civil Engineering will be required to take selected undergraduate courses that do not count as graduate credit. A minimum combined score of 1000 on the quantitative and verbal sections of the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) is required. Students who graduated from an ABET accredited Utah university with a GPA of 3.2 or better, are not required to take the GRE test. International students must achieve a score of at least 550 on the TOEFL examination. Three letters of recommendation from individuals who can adequately assess your academic performance are also required of all graduate applicants.

Graduate students select an adviser willing to arrange a program of study suited to the student's interests and to guide them through their research project. In addition, a supervisory committee is appointed to administer the various examinations required for the particular graduate degree.

Application forms for admission to the Graduate School are available from the Admissions Office or the department office. International students should obtain their applications from the International Student Admissions Office.

Credit Limitations. Students may count no more than 9 credit hours of non-matriculated graduate work toward any graduate degree without prior approval. Candidates for graduate degrees are required to maintain a 3.0 or higher GPA, with no grade below C- accepted for credit toward degrees. For more detailed information, see the Graduate Information section of this catalog.

M.E. Degree. The Master of Engineering degree is a non-thesis degree intended for those who wish to do work beyond the Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering but who do not wish to pursue the research-oriented Master of Science degree. As such, it is a terminal degree typically for professional engineers.

There are three possible options for completing the ME degree. The first two options are to complete a special project or a technical paper. The third option will allow students to substitute three graduate-level credit hours of course work in place of CVEEN 6960, Master of Engineering-Special Projects. Students must have prior approval from their graduate advisor before electing this third option.

Depending on the student's area of graduate specialization, additional undergraduate courses may be required by the supervisory committee.

ME candidates, who have a Professional Engineering license earned by examination in Civil Engineering or one of the subcategories, will be exempted from taking the GRE. If they wish to switch to a Master of Science degree, the candidate must reapply through the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and complete the GRE.

M.S. Degree. The M.S. degree allows for specialization in a particular discipline of Civil Engineering with an emphasis on research.

A minimum of 30 credit hours, including 6 credit hours of thesis research, is required. The course of study must be approved by the student's supervisory committee. Some emphasis areas require entering masters degree students to pass a qualifying exam to attain full graduate standing. The committee also administers a comprehensive final examination and the thesis defense, which the student must pass in the semester prior to graduation.

Ph.D. Degree. A minimum of 48 credit hours of course work and 14 hours of dissertation research are required. Students entering with an M.S. degree are required to take at least 24 hours of course work and 14 hours of dissertation research.

During the first year of graduate study, performance and background are evaluated in several ways that may include a formal written and/or oral examination administered by the student's supervisory committee. Some students may be required to take additional courses to correct deficiencies for which they do not receive graduate credit.

The course of study is planned with the assistance of the student's adviser and approved by the student's supervisory committee. On completion of course work, a qualifying examination must be passed before admission to candidacy for the Ph.D. degree.

A final dissertation defense is also administered by the student's supervisory committee. For general requirements, see Degree Requirements in the Graduate Study section of this catalog.

Financial Assistance. Information about financial aid and scholarships is available from the department office and the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships.