CE 33500 – Civil Engineering Materials

Credits and contact hours:

  • 4 credits
  • Lecture meets 3 times per week for 50 minutes per meeting for 15 weeks.
  • Labs: One 2-hour section and one 50 minute section per week for 15 weeks (including lab prep).

Specific course information:

  • Catalog description: An introduction to the relationships between fundamental structure of materials and their properties presented through a combination of materials science and engineering approaches. Emphasis on materials of particular interest for civil engineering applications, including metals, aggregates, portland cement concrete, bituminous materials, asphalt binders, asphalt mixtures, wood, polymers, composites, and masonry. Laboratory exercises illustrate atomic structure, elastic and inelastic properties, and demonstrate applications of selected principle of mechanics, testing of aggregates, as well as designing and testing of asphalt and concrete mixtures.
  • Prerequisites: CE 270 - Introduction to Structural Mechanics
  • Course status: Required core course in Civil Engineering curriculum

Specific Goals for the course:

  • Student learning outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course the student shall be able to:
    • formulate equations that describe the properties of composite materials based on boundary conditions, assumptions and constituent properties.
    • be able to design and conduct experiments, as well as to analyze and interpret data.
    • use non-destructive tests to estimate material properties.
    • use non-destructive tests to locate flaws in engineering systems.
    • compare and contrast strength of materials and fracture mechanics solutions.
    • use mathematics, science and engineering principles to estimate the influence of cracks on the mechanical response of engineering materials
    • use scientific and engineering principles to predict the elastic and viscoelastic response of a material.
    • interpret engineering properties from test data.
    • use standardized test procedures to describe the properties of engineering materials.
    • use mathematical, scientific and engineering principles to compute the influence of material proportions on the structure property relationships for concrete materials.
    • be able to design the proportions for a concrete mixture.
    • understand the relationship between the properties of an asphalt mixture and its performance.
    • be able to select engineering materials for specific applications.
    • communicate effectively using graphs.
    • communicate effectively using an executive summary.
    • communicate effectively using an engineering report.
    • communicate the expected accuracy obtained from engineering data.
  •  Relationship of course to program outcomes
    • An ability to apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors.
    • An ability to develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and interpret data, and use engineering judgment to draw conclusions.

Topics:

  • Review of concepts: Force, stress, strain
  • Elasticity & Hooke’s law
  • Plasticity, True stress/strain Generalized Hooke’s Law
  • Thermal behavior of materials
  • Atomic bounding, crystal structure & their effects on properties
  • Defects, dislocations and voids
  • Introduction to phase diagrams
  • Phase diagrams (steel)
  • Composites
  • Fracture mechanics
  • Viscoelasticity
  • Aggregates
  • Bituminous Materials
  • Asphalt mixtures
  • Mixture design of asphalt
  • Asphalt plant operations
  • Introduction to Concrete
  • Cement
  • Supplementary Cementitious Materials
  • Durability of concrete
  • Mixture proportioning
  • Special concretes
  • Non-destructive testing
  • Sustainability of concrete
  • Masonry
  • Wood