What is Structural Engineering?

The Engineer

10 years ago

Structural engineering is a sub-discipline of Civil engineering and deals with the analysis and design of structures, which are used to support or resist loads. Structural engineering is one of the most famous sub-discipline of Civil engineering. It basically involves application of physical knowledge, material properties and its geometry in order to calculate the amount of load that the structural members can resist. Over time, the incorporation of computers have made the calculations somewhat easy and less tedious, however, a complete grip of the field is required to make use of computers efficiently.

Structural Engineering Sub Disciplines

Structural Engineering has been divided into following sub-disciplines;

Earthquake engineering
Façade engineering
Fire engineering
Roof engineering
Tower engineering
Wind engineering
Nanoscale structures
Structural Engineering for Medical Science
Aerospace structures
Mechanical structures

Top Structural Engineering Universities

The top three ranked universities when it comes to Structural Engineering are as follows;

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
University of Cambridge

Structural Engineering Associations

There are a myriad of associations pertaining to Structural Engineering but we shall list only three;

IABSE
SEI-ASCE
SEA

Being a Structural Engineer

Being a structural engineer is no walk in the park or a piece of cake; one must be diligent and hardworking to master this field. One needs to keep in mind the safety, technical, economic and environmental aspects in mind while catering to the social factors and aesthetic beauty as well. A structure engineer needs good knowledge of computer as well since modelling and renderings are all done on computers.