History of Engineering

WMSU

Engr. Ramon P. Velasco1 Jr.

Assist. Prof. IV
What is Engineering?
Engineers use their knowledge of
math and natural sciences to create,
using the materials
and forces of nature,
solutions to problems
that affect mankind
What is Civil Engineering????

Civil engineering is a composite of

many specific disciplines.
Structural & solid mechanics.
Waste treatment & environmental.
Transportation.
Geotechnical & soil mechanics.
Hydraulics & water management.
Construction management.
What problems did the
first “engineers” solve?
◼ Safety
◼ Fortifications
◼ Walls
◼ Water
◼ Wells
◼ Canals
◼ Food
◼ Canals
◼ Irrigation
Earliest Engineers?

3300 b.c. - Egyptians develop

dikes and canals.
Archeological records show the
builders used primitive surveying
instruments to lay out the canals.
 Next, the King’s Monuments!
The history of structural engineering dates back to at least
2700 BC when the step pyramid for Pharaoh Djoser was
built by Imhotep, the first engineer in history known by
name.

Imhotep builds first

pyramid at Sakkara,
Egypt.
◼ 2500 b.c. - Great Pyramids built at Giza (Pyramid
of khufu)
◼ Depends heavily on labor - time is not a concern.
The People’s Comfort
◼ 2000 b.c. - Sumerian builders develop
canals, temples, city walls
◼ 1800 b.c. - Hammarubi develops first
building code in Babylonia
◼ 700 b.c. - Assyrians develop the first public
water supply - 30 miles of canals to feed
Ninevah. (First use of concrete!)
◼ 200 b.c. - Water supply to Pergamum
includes an elevated reservoir, line pressure
over 300 psi.
The People’s Comfort
◼ 1800 b.c. - Hammarubi develops
first building code in Babylonia
Babylonian King Hammurabi (1792-1750 BC)
published the first recorded document that can be
considered a building code book almost 4,000 years
ago. Faulty building practices were no more
appreciated then than they are now. Hammurabi's
Code of Laws were all-inclusive; a few of them
regulated the building contractors of the time. Of the
282 codes, numbers 228 through 233 are those which
represent the rules for construction.
 The People’s Comfort
◼ 1800 b.c. - Hammarubi develops
first building code in Babylonia
229. If a builder has built a house for a man, and has not made
his work sound, and the house he built has fallen, and caused
the death of it's owner, that builder shall be put to death.
230. If it is the owner's son that is killed, the builder's son shall
be put to death.
231. If it is the slave of the owner that is killed, the builder
shall give slave for slave to the owner of the house.
232. If he has caused the loss of goods, he shall render back
whatever he has destroyed. Moreover, because he did not
make sound the house he built, and it fell, at his own cost he
shall rebuild the house that fell.
Trade!
◼ 450 b.c. - Greek
architectons build
harbor at Samos
◼ 200 b.c. - 3300 foot
long tunnel through
solid limestone at
Samos
◼ Ship building, light
houses, etc.
 Conquest!

◼ 312 b.c. - Romans build Appian

Way
◼ It connected Rome to Brindisi, in
southeast Italy
◼ Conquest of other lands leads to
sharing of knowledge
◼ Moors in Spain

◼ Roman influence throughout

Appia longarum... regina viarum
"the Appian Way the queen of the west
the long roads"
 Conquest!
◼ 214 b.c. Chinese build 1700 mile long wall
Several walls were being built
as early as the 7th
century BC;[2] these, later
joined together and made
bigger and stronger, are
collectively referred to as the
Great Wall.[3]Especially famous
is the wall built in 220–206 BC
by Qin Shi Huang, the first
Emperor of China.
Roman Creations
◼ 312 b.c. - Appian Way, Aqua Appius
◼ 17 b.c. - Aggripa builds Pantheon.
◼ The Pantheon-"[temple] of all the
gods") is a former Roman temple, now
a church, in Rome, Italy, on the site of
an earlier temple commissioned
by Marcus Agrippa during the reign
of Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD)
The Pantheon,"[temple] of all the gods") is a
former Roman temple, now a church, in Rome, Italy, on
the site of an earlier temple commissioned by Marcus
Agrippa during the reign of Augustus (27 BC – 14 AD). It
was completed by the emperor Hadrian and probably
dedicated about 126 AD. Its date of construction is
uncertain, because Hadrian chose not to inscribe the new
temple but rather to retain the inscription of Agrippa's
older temple, which had burned down.
 Roman Creations
◼ 98 a.d. - Alcantra bridge in Spain
◼ The bridge is 616 feet long and 26 feet
wide. There are 6 arches supported by five pillars
and two supports at the ends. The two middle
arches have a span of 150 feet. On top of the
bridge the triumphal arch is about 46 feet high.
◼ dry masonry construction
Roman Creations
◼ 122 a.d. - Hadrian’s Wall, also called the Roman
Wall, Picts' Wall, or Vallum Hadriani in Latin, was a
defensive fortification in the Roman
province of Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of
the emperor Hadrian.
 Greek Creations
Under the rule of Eumenes II (197-160)
Pergamon was an important ancient
Greek city Pergamum was a wealthy,
developing city with a population of over
200,000 people. Culturally it was rivaled
only by the cities
of Alexandria and Antioch. Many
important works of sculpture and
architecture were produced at this time,
including the Great Altar of Pergamon.
Great Altar of Pergamon
Upon the death of Attalus III, son of
Eumenes II, in 133 BC, Pergamum was
bequeathed to the Roman Republic
Other Cultures
◼ Mayan: 12,000 B.C. to 1600 AD
◼ Teotihuacan in central Mexico had a
population of 200,000 in 350 AD.
◼ Calendars, roads, temples, chariots
◼ Chinese: 21,000 B.C. to present
◼ Shang Dynasty: 1700 BC – writing
◼ Han Dynasty: 200 BC – universities
◼ Silk, paper, gunpowder, printing
Western Development
◼ 500 - 1300 a.d. - Middle Ages
◼ Little development
◼ Castles, windmills, ship building
◼ Cathedrals
◼ 1100 - 1200 a.d. - Term engineer arises
◼ Based on “in generare” - to create
◼ Often built “engines of war”
Western Development
◼ 1300 - 1750 a.d. - Great scientific advances
◼ Previous - trial & error
◼ Sometimes ran afoul of the church
◼ 1747 - French build first Engineering school
◼ 1780 - James Watt builds practical steam
engine - Mechanical Engineering
1771 - the term “Civil Engineering” is used

◼ Who is the first civil engineer?

◼ The first self-proclaimed civil engineer
was John Smeaton, who constructed
the Eddystone Lighthouse. In
1771 Smeaton and some of his
colleagues formed the Smeatonian
Society of Civil Engineers, a group of
leaders of the profession who met
informally over dinner.
Western Development
◼ 1800 (?) - Eli Whitney introduces mass
production in factories - beginnings of
Industrial Engineering
◼ 1844 - Samuel Morse invents the
telegraph - Electrical Engineering
◼ 1885 - Karl Benz begins production of
gasoline driven automobiles.
 HEALTH & SANITATION
First, 1817–1824
1ST cholera pandemic
The first cholera pandemic, though previously
restricted, began in Bengal, and then spread
across India by 1820. Hundreds of thousands of
Indians and ten thousand British troopsdied during
this pandemic. The cholera outbreak extended as
far as China, Indonesia (where more than 100,000
people succumbed on the island of Java alone)
and the Caspian Sea in Europe, before receding.
 A pump memorializing John Snow for
his study of contaminated water as a
likely source of cholera during
the 1854 Broad Street Cholera
outbreak.

The third cholera pandemic deeply affected

Russia, with over one million deaths. Over 15,000
people died of cholera in Mecca in 1846. A two-year
outbreak began in England and Wales in 1848, and
claimed 52,000 lives.
The Pace Increases
◼ 1903 - Wright Brother fly at Kitty Hawk
◼ 1917 - Commercial air-mail service
◼ 1930 – 43 Airlines in the US
◼ 1957 – Sputnik
◼ 1961 – Manned space flight
◼ 1969 – Moon landing!
Why Study History?
◼ Keeps our perspective on
the “impossible”.
◼ Avoid repeating mistakes.
◼ Shows us the importance of
“mundane” developments.
◼ Helps us see how historical
cultural differences may
impact modern solutions.
“Its all been done”
In the late 1800’s, the head of the U.S. Patent
Office appealed to Congress to close his
office, saying “Everything that can ever be
invented, has been.”
Lesson from the Past
◼ Ankor Wat built by
Suryavarman II
(1113-c. 1150)
◼ Most visible remnant
of a highly productive
society
◼ May have been wiped
out buy Malaria
 Lesson from the Past
Angkor Wat "Capital Temple") is a temple
complex in Cambodia and one of the largest
religious monuments in the world, on a site
measuring 162.6 hectares (1,626,000 m2; 402
acres). It was originally constructed as a Hindu
temple dedicated to the god Vishnu for
the Khmer Empire, gradually transforming into
a Buddhist temple towards the end of the 12th
century. It was built by the King Suryavarman
II in the early 12th century
Who stopped “the Plague”
City life in England in 1842
◼ Shift from agricultural to industrial production
◼ Overcrowding rampant
◼ Child laborers
◼ Average age of death
◼ Gentry - 43
◼ Tradesman - 30
◼ Laborers 22
◼ For every death by old age or violence,
8 died from disease
Sanitary Conditions
◼ People living in basements, streets.
◼ Water from public wells
or pumped from river
to shared standpipes.
◼ Sewage, trash thrown
into gutters.
◼ In London the Thames
began to stink.
The smell, and people's fears of its possible effects
prompted action from the local and national
administrators who had been considering possible
solutions for the problem. The authorities accepted
a proposal from the Civil Engineer Joseph
Bazalgette to move the effluent eastwards along a
series of interconnecting sewers that sloped
towards outfalls beyond the metropolitan area.
Work on high-, mid- and low-level systems for the
new Northern and Southern Outfall Sewers started
at the beginning of 1859 and lasted until 1875.
A New Plague Arrives
◼ Cholera arrives from India.
◼ In Paris, 7000 die in 18 days.
◼ Britain's industrialized
cities lose 22,000.
◼ Doctors disagree on treatment.
◼ Under medical care,
25%-59% of patients died.
The Plague Ends
◼ Insurance Actuaries determine that
the closer you live to the Thames,
the higher your risk of dying.
◼ Laws forbid pumping
drinking water
from the Thames.
◼ New sewers.
◼ The plague ends!