CIVL 1100

Discovering Civil and Environmental Engineering

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
(土木及環境工程學系)
HKUST

8. Be a Civil Engineer – Build a Better World

J S Kuang, PhD CEng FICE FIStructE FHKIE

Professor of Civil Engineering2

8. Be a Civil Engineer –
build a better world

Engineering Ethics “Civil engineering is the art of directing

8.1 the great sources of power in nature for
the use and convenience of mankind”
Civil Engineering Profession T. Tredgold, 1828, for the first ICE Royal Charter
8.2

Be a Civil Engineer
8.3

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 When we travel on roadways, railways and canals …

When we pass over bridges and through tunnels …

When we drink water from our household taps …

Civil
“Civil engineering
engineering works
is the artliterally
of directing
surround
the great sources us all. in nature for
of power
New
the structures and buildings
use and convenience appear on
of mankind” We seldom
the earth everyday.
T. Tredgold, 1828, for the first ICE Royal Charter think about
whether all of
these are safe.

8.1.1 Public perception 8.1.2 Failure of civil Engineering works

We TRUST Civil Engineers and
their works.
We BELIEVE Civil Engineers are honest,
responsible, truthful and ethical.
We BELIEVE Civil Engineers will discharge
their duties with profession and integrity.
• It is no doubt that all civil engineering works can improve working efficiency,
productivity and living environment of our society.
• However, failure of any civil engineering works will result in unaffordable
consequences, such as loss of human lives and properties, and economic and
environmental damages.
• Therefore, public always has a high expectation on civil engineers as well as
their works.

We BELIEVE the character and moral values of Civil

Engineers will not endanger public good. •• Improvement of living
Loss of human lives
Civil Engineering environment
and properties
We BELIEVE the obligation of Civil Engineers is to promote Works • Contribution to social &
the safety, health and welfare of the public. Public endangerment
• economic developments

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Examples of engineering failure ‰ Collapse of Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Washington State

• Tacoma Narrows Bridge located in Washington and spanned the Tacoma Narrows
strait of Puget Sound between Tacoma and the Kitsap Peninsula.
• Examples of engineering failure:
¾ Collapse of Tacoma Narrows Bridge, 1940 • The bridge was the third longest suspension bridge in
the world, with main span of 853.4 m, at the time
¾ Collapse of Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkways, 1981
when it was opened to traffic on 1st July 1940.
¾ Collapse of Sampoong Department Store, 1995
• The bridge collapsed due to the wind-
¾ Short-piling Scandal, 1999
induced structural failure on 7th Nov 1940,
¾ Collapse of Lotus River Garden, 2009 after opening only for 4 months .

• The lessons learned from the failures had many important impacts on the civil
engineering practices and affected the engineering world as well.

9 Video shows the motion of the bridge

Collapse of Tacoma Narrows Bridge (cont’d) ‰ Collapse of Sampoong Department Store, Seoul
(삼풍백화점 三豊百貨店)

• The Sampoong Department Store was located in the Seocho-gu district of Seoul,
South Korea.
• The bridge's collapse had a lasting effect on science
and engineering. • It was a five-storey on ground and four-storey underground building and consisted
Aftermath of north and south wings, connected by an atrium.
• Engineers began including aerodynamics into the art
of bridge design, and this collapse became the
famous example in aerodynamic stability in design.
• This failure also boosted research in the field of
bridge aerodynamics-aeroelastics and increased our
understanding of wind/structure interactions.

• The department store opened to the public on 7 July 1990, and collapsed on 29
June 1995 after opening only 5 years:
Wind tunnel test
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Collapse of Sampoong Department Store (cont’d)
(삼풍백화점 三豊百貨店)
o Several minutes before disaster, the building started to produce
cracking sounds.
o In less than 20 seconds, the main columns collapsed and the
entire south wing of the building pancaked into the basement.
Failure
o The Department Store’s collapsed was due to
ignorance and punching shear failure:
This originally designed 4-storey office block was
changed without permission. An additional 5th
floor for catering with heavy air conditioning
units placed on roof, resulted in very significant
overloading.
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Collapse of Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkways, Kansas City (cont’d)
Date: 17 July 1981
Time: 7:05 pm
• Around 1600 people crowded the walkways and lobby
for a dance competition.
Failure
• The connection between the 4th floor walkway support
beams and the tie rods carrying the weight of walkways
failed, causing the 4th floor walkway collapsed onto the
2nd floor walkway, and then both walkways fell to the
lobby floor below.
• The collapse killed 114 people and 216 injured.
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‰ Collapse of Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkways, Kansas City
• The Hyatt Regency Hotel was a 40-storey hotel opened in 1st July 1980 in Kansas
City, Missouri.
• One of the building’s main features was its multistory atrium crossed by three
concrete walkways on the second, third and fourth floors.
• One year later, the deadliest structural collapse in the US
history happened – collapse of the second and fourth floor
walkways during a tea dance.
Collapse of Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkways, Kansas City (cont’d)
• The collapse was due to the change of design and
improper welding and connections:
o The fabricator changed the single rod to double rod at
Reason the joint, and the engineers accepted the changes
without performing basic calculation.
o The bolts were directly through a welded joint
connecting two C-channels; hence this improper
connection allowed the box beam to slip down over
the nut and washer when the bottom flanges
deformed sufficiently.
The deformed
4th floor beam
Original detail As-built detail
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Collapse of Hyatt Regency Hotel Walkways, Kansas City (cont’d) ‰ Short-piling scandal, Hong Kong

• A series of short pile problems in various public housing projects were uncovered
starting in 1998 in the Housing Authority (HA) project in Tung Chung.
• Scam of short piling in the HA’s Tin Chung Court (天頌苑) project in 1999:
Aftermath • The Missouri Board of Architects, Professional Engineers, o Two buildings in Tin Chung Court had proved very difficult to install lift shafts
and Land Surveyors convicted the engineers who had because of unusual settlement cased by short piles.
signed off on the final drawings of gross negligence, o The piles of two concord blocks (Block K and L) were found to be shortened by
misconduct, and unprofessional conduct in the practice up to seven metres compared with the standard requirement.
of engineering.
(Foundation strengthening works was then carried out in the blocks and
（嚴重疏忽，不當行為，違反職業道德） completed in 2002.)

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Remedial works of foundation

‰ Collapse of Lotus River Garden, Shanghai 8.1.3 Engineering ethics (職業道德)

A nearly completed 13-storey
residential building was collapsed • Every coin has two sides, as a civil engineer.
on 27 June 2009 ... Poor design,
• Goodconstruction
poor construction management,
quality control, quantity control and workmanship • We can contribute to society and engineer infrastructure development; however,
any incorrect calculations or misconduct in engineering practices may lead to
are the
poor essential…factors that ensure the structures can work
workmanship failure of engineering works and result in high consequences, loss of human lives
smoothly within their expected structural life . and properties.
Poor quality control / workmanship
South China Morning Post (16th July 2011) • Therefore, civil engineering got organised as profession and professional societies
… bathroomconsequences
• Possible drain sometimes stinks,
of poor construction management include: are founded to protect the public by maintaining and enforcing standards of
the wooden floor cracks in the dry training and ethics in civil engineering.
winters and one window never fails
to let in the water on rainy days ...
Poor Daily High Maintenance
Performance Cost Good
Building collapse Wrong
… a nearly completed 13- storey
apartment building in a complex of Bad
11 buildings known as Lotus Loss of Life
Riverside, inStructural
Shanghai, Failure
toppled over
Right
largely intact, killing one worker …

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Engineering ethics (cont’d)
• Engineering ethics is a set of ethical standards for engineers to follow which can
apply to most circumstances that arise on the job.
• These ethical standards are the engineers’ obligations towards the public,
employers and the profession.
• The fundamental principle of engineering ethics states that engineers should
uphold and advance the honesty, integrity and dignity of the engineering
profession.
誠實，正直 和 尊嚴
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‰ Codes of ethics (道德規範)
• Many engineering professional societies have prepared codes
of ethics as a guide for their members. The general principals
of these codes of ethics are largely similar.
• The representative codes of ethics proposed by five well-
recognised professional societies and chartering authorities:
¾ Engineering Council UK (ECUK)
– Britain's regulatory authority regulates the engineering profession.
‰ ECUK Statement of Ethical Principles
¾ Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE)
– It is an independent professional association for civil engineering.
‰ ICE Code of Professional Conduct
¾ Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE)
– It is a professional organisation for structural engineering.
‰ IStructE Code of Conduct
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‰ Code of Hammurabi (漢謨拉比法典)
• The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code, dating back to
about 1772 BC, the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world.
• The Code consists of 282 laws, and is one of the earliest code of laws stated the
convict of a builder for improper construction.
“If a builder builds a house for some one, but does not
construct it properly, and the house which he built
falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be
put to death.”
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Codes of ethics (cont’d)
• The representative codes of ethics proposed by five well-
recognised professional societies and chartering authorities
(cont’d):
¾ National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE)
– Engineering society represents engineers across all disciplines in the US.
¾ American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)
– It is the America's oldest national engineering society.
‰ ASCE Code of Ethics
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‰ NSPE Code of Ethics for Engineers

Engineering Ethics
8.1
• Fundamental Canons
Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, must Civil Engineering Profession
1. Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public. 8.2
2 … to 6 …

• Professional Obligations
Be a Civil Engineer
8.3
1. Engineers shall be guided in all their relations by the highest standards of
honesty and integrity.
2 … to 9 …

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8.2.1 Engineering as a profession 8.2.2 Professional bodies of civil engineering in the UK

What is “Profession” ? ICE was founded in IStructE was founded in

1818. It is a world-
wide professional
A PROFESSION is defined by association, based in
1. Knowledge: requiring formal education, judgment and discretion that London, with nearly
are not routine and cannot be mechanised; continuing education 80,000 members .
required
Its aim is to "foster and
2. Organisation: setting standards for admission to profession, enforcing promote the art and
standards of conduct, and establishing codes of ethics science of civil
3. Public Good: being purpose of service and preservation of public engineering".
welfare
The Institution of
Civil Engineers
Civil Engineering as a Profession
1908 for structural
engineering profession,
based in London, and
has more than 27,000
members in 105
countries.
It works to maintain
the set standards and
support the role of the
structural engineer
around the world.
The Institution of
Structural Engineers

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 8.2.3 Professional registration in the UK

• In the UK, the professional title for engineers is Chartered Engineer (CEng), which
is referred to an engineer registered with the Engineering Council UK (the British
regulatory body for engineers) and protected by the civil law.
• Chartered Engineers are also entitled to register through the European Federation Civil Engineering Ethics
of National Engineering Associations as an European Engineer (Eur Ing). 8.1
• The Engineering Council UK delegates the authority to licensed member
institutions for register of Chartered Engineers. For the registration of civil Civil Engineering Profession
engineers, two institutions are authorised: 8.2
¾ Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE): MICE, FICE
¾ Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE): MIStructE, FIStructE Be a Civil Engineer –
8.3
build a better world

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8.3.1 The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) 8.3.2 Routes to a Corporate Member

• The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) is the only statutory qualifying body
• To be a Corporate Member of the HKIE, a candidate needs to satisfy the education,
for engineers in Hong Kong − It aims to enhance common good of engineers and
training and responsible experience requirements.
to ensure a high professional and ethical standard of engineer’s practice.
• Membership of a discipline is by assessment or recognition of a relevant
• HKIE was incorporated under the Laws of Hong Kong – Cap 1105 The Hong Kong
professional qualification only.
Institution of Engineers Ordinance, in 1975.
• Among the twenty disciplines, four disciplines are related to civil engineering
• HKIE includes 20 disciplines currently:
industry:
1. Aircraft 11. Fire
2. Biomedical 12. Gas ¾ Civil
3. Building 13. Geotechnical ¾ Structural
4. Building Services 14. Information ¾ Geotechnical
5. Chemical 15. Logistics & Transportation ¾ Environmental
6. Civil 16. Manufacturing & Industrial
7. Control, Automation & 17. Marine & Naval
Instrumentation Architecture
8. Electrical 18. Materials
9. Electronics 19. Mechanical
10. Environmental 20. Structural
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 A Route to HKIE Corporate Member
Engineering Graduate
Formal Training Training Scheme ‘A’
Route

Accredited honours HKIE Corporate

Recognised academic qualifications degree or equivalent Member

Civil, Structural, Geotechnical,

All other disciplines
and Environmental disciplines
Professional Reviews/Exams
Training period Training period
3 years 2 years
HKIE Scheme ‘A’ Training

Professional assessment / examination Educational base Accredited degree in civil, structural or

civil/environmental engineering

Corporate Member (MHKIE) 33

‰ Model Training of Scheme ‘A’ ‰ Professional Review /exam

Civil Discipline Structural Discipline

Civil Discipline Structural Discipline
Professional Assessment:
Training Stages Training Stages 1. Documentation HKIE Structural Examination consists
(Report on training and experience, of two parts:
1. Introduction 1. Introduction project report, training logbook)
2. Design and Associated Office 2. Basic and Supplementary Training 1. Written examination (7 hours)
2. Presentation & Interview
Practice
3. Engineering Design & Practice 3. Essay (1,600 words in 2 hours) 2. Professional interview (oral exam)
(minimum 12 months in total)
3. Site Experience 4. Site Experience
(minimum 12 months in total) Professional Assessment: Professional Assessment :
5. Engineering Management 1. Documentation
4. General 1. Documentation
(Report on training and experience, (Training and experience report,
(applicable to both office CPD Requirement project report, training logbook) project report, technical proposal
experience and site experience)
• A minimum average of 45 hours and cost estimate)
2. Presentation & Interview
CPD Requirement per year 2. Presentation & Interview
3. Essay (1,600 words in 2 hours)
• A minimum average of 45 hours 3. Essay (1,600 words in 2 hours)
per year
Environmental Discipline Geotechnical Discipline
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 8.3.3 Registered professional engineers Registered professional engineers (cont’d)

• The registration of professional engineers is stated in the Laws of Hong Kong – Cap
• According to the Laws of Hong Kong – Cap 123 Buildings Ordinance: 409 Engineers Registration Ordinance.

“Every person for whom building works or street works are to be carried out shall
appoint Geotechnical engineering discipline
(a) an authorised person (AP, 認可人士) as the co-ordinator of such building
works or street works;
(b) a registered structural engineer (RSE, 註冊結構工程師) for the structural Registered Registered Registered
elements of such building works or street works Structural professional Geotechnical
(c) a registered geotechnical engineer (RGE, 註冊岩土工程師) for the Engineer engineer Engineer
geotechnical elements of such building works or street works” (RPE)
RSE RGE

Structural or civil
engineering discipline

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Registered professional engineers (cont’d) 8.3.4 Career prospective

AP, …
On the Professional Memberships Mutual Recognition (互認)
Director /
Executive Director /
1. HKIE (Civil) ICE, CEng (Chartered Engineering) RSE, RGE Chairman of the board
o Corporate membership mutual recognition of directors / …
Registered engineer
2. ICE Eur Ing MICE, MIStructE Chief engineer /
MHKIE (RPE)
--- Associate director /
Director
3. HKIE (ST) IStructE, CEng Professional
Scheme ‘A’ engineer
o Corporate membership mutual recognition – till 2008 Engineer /
o Arrangement of new mutual recognition of the corporate membership Senior engineer
between HKIE (ST) and IStructE under negotiation Graduate
engineer
(under training)

Civil engineering
student
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 God created the world
For the glory of the skies

For the beauty of the earth

For the love which from our birth

Over and around us lies …

We, civil engineers,

contribute to society
and build a better world …
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 SONG OF THE ENGINEER
I take the vision which comes from dreams
And apply the magic of science and mathematics
Adding the heritage of my profession
And my knowledge of Nature’s materials
To create a design.

I organise the efforts and skills of my fellow

workers
Employing the capital of the thrifty
And the products of many industries
And together we work toward our goal
Undaunted by hazards and obstacles.

And when we have completed our task

All can see
That the dreams and plans have materialised
For the comfort and welfare for all.

I am an Engineer.
I serve mankind
By making dreams come true.
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Are you ready to be a civil engineering student ?

The End of CIVL 1100 Part II

Are You Ready to Build a Better World ?

J S Kuang, PhD CEng FICE FIStructE FHKIE
Professor of Civil Engineering

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