With so much political press being given to the need for aligning our nation’s infrastructure with advances in technology, it is vital for every project contractor to understand how their work will be impacted by the designs of civil engineers. Have you ever wondered exactly what it is that civil engineers do? In light of what you are seeking to understand, let’s look at three of the most important municipal projects civil engineers are tasked with designing.
1. The Development of New Roads and Highways
There is no doubt about our roads and highways being insufficient to handle the traffic in today’s highly mobile world. In fact, have you ever wondered who on earth designed the streets in most of our cities across the country? Actually, in the defense of civil engineers of the past, they weren’t dealing with the population explosion leading to overcrowded cities.
While old roads need to be repaired, many need to be rerouted or new roads constructed to handle the amount and type of traffic we see today. This is something that will require exact infrastructure analytics for geospatial locations by Civil Design Inc, for example.
Through the use of geospatial technology, civil engineers can determine the exact best location for new roads or bypasses and that is a technology that simply wasn’t in existence before those amazing satellites orbiting the earth. Isn’t it funny how it takes a space station to determine how our roads should be routed. Your ancestors would laugh at the thought of it!
2. Installing, Repairing or Redirecting Sections of Sewage Lines
Here is another way in which civil engineers use geospatial technology. You can’t, in fact, just dig and install sewage lines wherever you think they should go. Not only is the topography important but so too are existing communities and neighborhoods. To dig up just one section of a city’s sewage system could impact the entire system and it has been known to shut down sewage in large portions of a city or neighborhood. Everything from planned construction to existing lines needs to be analyzed before making any changes whatsoever.
3. Designing Locations for Undergrown Power Lines
Now, this is perhaps the very most important job civil engineers can be tasked with. Consider for just a moment all the fires and floods out west along with the increasing frequency and intensity of tropical storms in the southern states bordered by the Atlantic. Hurricanes are getting stronger and much more frequent and as a result, above ground power lines are being downed at greater frequencies than ever before.
Civil engineers will need to use all the technology at their disposal to plan how and where underground electric lines should be laid. Starting with geospatial locators, they will need to assess the current lines along with potential flood zones that can be as damaging as those powerful gales. Actually, all three of these areas civil engineers deal with are dependent on technology never before available. What is it they do? They perform miracles by waving their hi-tech magic wands. That’s what they do and aren’t you glad they’re there? Without them our infrastructure would be a hopeless cause.
