1.

1 IMPORTANT OF CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS

The world is composed of various materials. The materials science and
engineering serves as ground for all technology branches such as electronics, energy,
communication, environment, and healthy engineering. Construction materials are the
most widely used materials and their usage is the largest in tonnage in the world.
Through the history of human civilization, many materials have been used in the
construction of buildings, bridges, roads and other structures. The focus of our study is
on modern construction materials including concrete, steel, wood, bituminous materials
as well as polymers and fibrous composites. Among these materials, concrete will
receive the most attention in this course, for two reasons. First, the civil engineer is
responsible for designing the concrete he/she uses and for ensuring its long term
performance. On the other hand, steel and wood products are designed by material and
mechanical engineers, who supply them to us according to our specifications. econd,
concrete !reinforced concrete" is the most widely used construction material in the world
and of course in #ong $ong, too. For any civil engineer who will be practicing in #ong
$ong, a good %nowledge of concrete behaviour is essential.
&esides concrete, steel and wood are the other two most commonly used
construction materials in the world. 'n the (, for e)ample, most residential houses are
built with wood and over half of the office buildings are constructed with steel. This is
due to the abundant supply of both materials, ma%ing them economical. teel, besides its
use as structural members on its own, is also used as reinforcements or prestressing
tendons for concrete structures. (nderstanding steel behaviour is hence an important
component in the studying of reinforced concrete and prestressed concrete design.
&ituminous materials are used all over the world in the construction of road pavements.
'n recent years, polymers and polymeric composites have been gaining popularity in the
construction industry, due to their light weight and good durability. *olymers have been
used in pipes, fabrics for large roofing as well as geote)tiles for slope protection.
+einforcing bars and grids have been made with fibre reinforced composites to replace
metals in corrosive environments.
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oil is also an important construction material, but it is covered in a separate
course. -asonry !bric%s and bloc%s" are widely used in building walls. ince they are
not the primary load carrying components, we will not discuss them here. 'n buildings,
many non.structural materials are also employed. These include floor and wall
coverings, tiles, glass, insulation materials, sealants etc. -ost of them are specified for
aesthetic purposes by the architect or the interior designer. They will not be studied in
this course.

1.2 IMPORTANCE OF FORMING THE DESIGN AND STRUCTURE TEAM
The design of engineered products is a comple) activity that re/uires
decomposition into tas%s according to product function or !modular" sub.system. 0esign
teams are usually formed to perform a set of tas%s that re/uire specialized %nowledge
such that the team of specialists can collectively complete them. The roles and
responsibilities of the team members need to be clearly defined, and aligned to their areas
of e)pertise. The performance of the design team depends on how effectively the team
members coordinate the tas%s, roles and responsibilities with the other members of the
team. 1or%ing in design teams re/uires additional actions beyond those related to the
tas%. These actions correspond to prosocial aspects of teamwor% such as %nowledge
sharing and communication. The prosocial activities contribute to the entrainment of their
behavior to one another. 'n the absence of such opportunities, merely collecting a
%nowledgeable engineering design team may not ensure high performance. 2ffective
teamwor% re/uires team members to have well.developed mental models of each other
and that of the tas%s, processes, conte)t and competence specific to the pro3ect, where
mental models are the simplified internal representations of the world. The formation of
team.related team mental models involves team members developing mental models of
each other4s competence and e)pertise, which allows them to coordinate the different
tas%s by assigning the right 3ob to the right people.
#ow the team is organized in terms of the tas% allocation and social observation
opportunities should affect the formation of T--s, and the ability of the team of e)perts
to coordinate the tas%s. The following three types of team structures are differentiated5
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Flat teams have no hierarchy and no sub.divisions. uch teams are generally used for
consultation, tas%.force and design e)ploration. There are no nominated leaders. A leader
may emerge over time, based on the interactions within the team.
Distributed flat teams5 1ith the increased use of communication technology, design
teams are often distributed across geographies, e.g., global product development teams.
'n such teams, sometimes social cli/ues develop, where the team is divided into two to
three collocated clusters. Thus, even if the teams are flat for the purpose of management,
the opportunities for social learning are s%ewed due to the physical boundaries.
Functional teams5 -any wor% teams are organized into functional sub.teams. 'n such
teams, the tas% is passed to the members from the sub.teams with relevant domain
%nowledge. 2ven if the hierarchy is not pre.defined, hierarchy emerges as the tas% is
decomposed into sub.tas%s, and members are chosen to coordinate those tas%s. A team
member from each sub.group emerges as the group leader as the pro3ect progresses. This
member also coordinates the activities of that group, at the higher level, with the other
group leaders.
0esign teams are mostly pro3ect.based. *ro3ect.based teams are commonplace in
large organizations, 3oint ventures, -2s and in virtual team. Team composition may
vary and affect the formation of T--s and the team performance in such teams. To
achieve higher team performance, managers and pro3ect leaders strive to ma)imize the
number of team members who have previously wor%ed together on a similar pro3ect,
which we define as member retention. #owever, retaining the entire team or some team
members from one pro3ect to the ne)t may not always be possible, and members will
li%ely wor% on more than one pro3ect at a time. econd, organizing the available human
resources in pro3ect.based teams allows firms and organizations to simultaneously engage
e)perts in multiple pro3ects and teams. The resulting wor%load and distributed attention
across the different teams may influence the T-- formation and the team performance
because team members4 attention is diverted from prosocial team activities to learn about
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other agents. That is, their wor%load busyness will diminish their opportunities for
socialization, which can decrease chances for T-- formation.
A schematic of the interdependence between the various aspects of +egulatory
Control ystems and Technical Clearances is as shown.
Code of practice and standard used for design purpose in ingapore as follow5
,. C*89 . tructural use of Concrete
*art ,5 ,::: 0esign and Construction
6. C*; 5 6<<7 . Foundations
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1.3 CIVIL ENGINEERING SOFTWARE
There are a variety of software programs which are available for the different
specialized disciplines of civil engineering. -ost civil engineers practice in specialized
subsets of civil engineering, such as geotechnical engineering, structural
engineering, transportation engineering, hydraulic engineering, environmental
engineering, pro3ect and construction management and land surveying. Today we have
several software with incredible features. The following software list provides you the
details about their features and wor%flow.
AutoCAD is familiar drafting tool, which is used all around the world. 't designs more
fle)ibly and protects your file using the Trusted01= file format. 1ith advanced features
in.built in applications, you can design faster and efficient ever before.
Bentley STAAD.Pro V8i is well %nown application for structural analysis and design of
structural buildings. TAA0.*ro >?i stands for Tructural Analysis And 0esign
*rofessional >ersion ?.< 'ntelligence. At earlier time, TAA0.*ro has many problems in
+un Analysis and Concrete design, but now the upcoming versions such 7 and ; are
as much as powerful in performing the process of analysis.
MS Project is pro3ect planing application where the user can ma%e schedule of his pro3ect
activities in C*- !critical path method". @ou can develop a plan and assign the desired
resources to particular tas%s, finally these activities can be managed A analysed
wor%loads.
Primavera is application developed by the Oracle Corporation. 't is advanced and high
performance pro3ect management software is designed to handle large.scale, highly
sophisticated and multifaceted pro3ects.
Solo for and Surveyors is complete solution for the field surveying engineers. 't
can transfer data from 20-, =* or data logger and performs traverse calculation and
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ad3ustment. 't can also calculate the &uilding elevations, but it can4t calculate the volume
and for this purpose you might need B >ista or B 2lite.
Analysis ! Desi"n#
$tabs is the ultimate integrated software pac%age for the structural analysis and design of
buildings. 2tabs offers sophisticated and comprehensive design capabilities for a wide.
range of materials, and insightful graphic displays, reports, and schematic drawings
where the user can /uic%ly perform and get analysis and design results.
SAP%&&& is application with power of A*6<<< for all of your analysis and design tas%s,
including small day.to.day problems. Comple) -odels can be generated and meshed
with powerful built in templates. 'ntegrated design code features can automatically
generate wind, wave, bridge, and seismic loads with comprehensive automatic steel and
concrete design code chec%s per (, Canadian and international design standards.
CSi brid"e engineers can easily define comple) bridge geometries, boundary conditions
and load cases. The parametric bridge model can be defined by bridge engineers such as
layout lines, spans, bearings, abutments, bents, hinges and post.tensioning. 'n addition,
AA#TO B+F0 design is included with automated load combinations, superstructure
design and the latest seismic design.
SAF$ is the application for designing concrete floor and foundation systems. uspended
slabs can include flat, two.way, waffle, and ribbed framing systems. 0etailed plans,
sections, elevations, schedules, and tables may be generated, viewed, and printed from
within AF2 or e)ported to CA0 pac%ages.
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REFERENCES
C,D 2ppinger, . and alminen, >., *atterns of *roduct 0evelopment 'nteractions. 'n
International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED'01). =lasgow, ($.
C6D -ilne, A. and Beifer, B., 'nformation #andling and ocial 'nteraction of -ulti.
0isciplinary 0esign Teams in Conceptual 0esign5 A Classification cheme
0eveloped from Observed Activity *atterns. 'n Proceedings of the Annual ASME
Design Theor ! Methodolog Conference "000. &altimore, (A.
C7D 2c%ert, C.-., Clar%son, *.E. and tacery, -.$., 'nformation flow in engineering
companies5 *roblems and their causes. 'n 1#th International Conference on
Engineering Design (ICED'01). =lasgow, ($.
C;D 0ong, A. and >ander -oere, A., >isualising collaboration in very large design
teams. 'n 1$th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED'0$).
-elbourne, Australia.
C9D Candy, B. and 2dmonds, 2., Collaborative e)pertise for creative technology
design. 'n
Proceedings of Design Thin%ing &esearch S'(osiu' "00#. (niversity of
Technology, ydney, Australia.
C8D Accredited Chec%er !civil A structural and geotechnical"
htt()**+++.,ca.go-.sg
CFD *+'G= ingapore tandards 0ivision
htt()**+++.standards.org.sg
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