Running Head: SAFE STRUCTURES: OPINION PIECE

Safe Structures: An Opinion Piece

Armando Esquivel
University of Texas at El Paso

SAFE STRUCTURES: OPINION PIECE

Nowadays buildings, streets and bridges have a more innovative

design. Even though this structures look aesthetically pleasant, they
may be subject to some engineering errors. In order for a civil engineer
to construct a structure, the civil engineer should include, rigorously, the
safety of the people as a factor. In order to create such structure there
should be a change in how civil engineers are trained in order to
construct such structure. Lets look at the five step design process
described by Bresler and Lin (1963), which include the following: (a)
selection of type of structure, (b) determination of loads, (c) internal forces and moments,
(d) proportion of members and connections and (e) performance under service conditions
(p.18). In this design process the reader can see that the last step is to examine the
performance under service conditions, but how does this goes about? Does the civil
engineer make a scale structure under the same loading conditions and then examine its
performance? To do this will take not only time, but also money. A way to ensure safety to
the environment, including people, is to raise the standards of safety practice to achieve a
more stable structure. This can be done by increasing the intensity of safety questions given
in a Fundamentals of Engineer exam or a Professional Engineer exam, whichever the case
may be, safety needs to be taken into account more rigorously.
Another way to increase safeness in the civil engineer professions, society could
demand more professional engineers. In order to implement this strategy, the society could
make an organization that will make the Fundamentals of Engineer exam a requirement to
graduate for all universities that teaches Civil Engineer and in the process some topics
should have more importance than other, for example mechanics of material. As Gere

SAFE STRUCTURES: OPINION PIECE

explains the design of machines and structure so that they will function properly requires
that we understand the mechanical behavior of the material being used (pp. 10). Meaning
that if a civil engineer wants construct a structure, a civil engineer should be completely
efficient and must have sufficient knowledge on the topic of mechanics of materials.

SAFE STRUCTURES: OPINION PIECE

Reference
Bresler, B., & Lin, T. Y. (1963) Design of Steel Structures. 8-11.
Gere, James M. (2004) Chapter 1 tension, compression and shear: Section 3 mechanical
properties of materials. Mechanics of Materials 6th edition. 10 -16.