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Geometric Design Project for First Year Civil Engineering Students

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Conference

2021 First-Year Engineering Experience

Location

Virtual

Publication Date

August 9, 2021

Start Date

August 9, 2021

End Date

August 21, 2021

Tagged Topic

Diversity

Page Count

9

DOI

10.18260/1-2--38385

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/38385

Download Count

686

Paper Authors

biography

Hadi Kazemiroodsari Wentworth Institute of Technology

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Hadi Kazemiroodsari is assistant professor at Wentworth Institute of Technology. He earned his PhD in Geotechnical engineering from Northeastern University. His area of expertise are Geotechnical engineering and Earthquake engineering.

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biography

Anuja Kamat Wentworth Institute of Technology

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Anuja Kamat is an Associate Professor in the Civil Engineering Department at Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston. Prof. Kamat received her Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Arizona, Tucson and MS in Civil Engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana - Champaign . She also has a BE in Construction Engineering from University of Mumbai and Diploma in Civil Engineering from Government Polytechnic, Mumbai. Prof. Kamat’s research is in the areas of reinforced and prestressed concrete, concrete blocks and engineering education.

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Abstract

Transportation engineering is an important sub-discipline of most Civil Engineering programs. Road design is a significant section of transportation engineering. One major aspect of road design is a geometric design that focuses on locating the road on a topographic map. Introduction to Engineering is a laboratory-based course for first-year students at the authors’ university. In this course, students work on a civil engineering related project during the semester. In Spring 2019 and 2020 semester students were introduced to geometric design by working on a road design project. Three main sections were implemented in this project. The first piece was understanding of topographic map. In this piece, students were asked to select a non-flat site located in the United States. The topographic map of the selected site was provided to students. Students were asked to draw the topographic map in SOLID WORKS or AutoCAD – Civil 3D and print their files using a 3D-printer. In the next section of the project, students were asked to design a road between two points of their topographic map. In this part of the project, students were introduced to geometric design including horizontal and vertical curves. Students designed three roads between the selected points, using a ruler and compass, and drew a vertical profile of each option on a grid paper. In the last section of the project, students learned the concept of earthwork in road design. Students calculated the volume of soil needed to be cut and fill for all three options. Finally, students picked their final design by studying steps two and three. This module worked well to teach the concepts of geometric design to first-year civil engineering students.

Kazemiroodsari, H., & Kamat, A. (2021, August), Geometric Design Project for First Year Civil Engineering Students Paper presented at 2021 First-Year Engineering Experience, Virtual . 10.18260/1-2--38385

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