Educating Engineers for Rebuilding Rather Than Building

The subject of this New York Conference on the Infrastructure: Maintenance and Repair of Public Works is timely. The broad-based view represented by the speakers which covers government policies, public financing, influence of maintenance and repair on building codes and standards, and the recognition that reconstruction requires different technological innovations is particularly pertinent to this session on civil engineering education and research. The purpose of this paper is to discuss what civil engineering educators and researchers must do to prepare new engineers for these new challenges. The United States has had a relatively unique position in the technological development arena. Many of our cities and public works were initiated and expanded while the new technologies were being created and improved. Our transportation systems evolved through waterway systems including canals, railroads, auto and truck traffic on dirt roads, and paved highways and expressways, and by air. In almost all of these cases the newest of the technology was applied as additions to or replacements for existing systems. Many parallels exist for water supply and waste treatment. The same is also true for our buildings. The evolution of building technology from timber, stone, and brick through iron, concrete, steel, aluminum, and prestressing has in general left us with a broad supply of building types and materials. Historically, when new facilities were needed the old facilities would be demolished and replaced by newer, bigger, better facilities. Design analysis has had a similar history. Each step of the evolution from simple design analysis procedures through the more complex interconnected systems designs now common followed the development of new analytical capabilities. Even though we now need large digital computers to effectively use our analytical capabilities for the particular problem being studied, we should not forget that earlier designers faced the same decisions that we do now. Many public officials and engineers, not too many years ago, firmly believed that the results of a computer simulation provided the answer for their decisions. At the present time there is a growing recognition that computer modeling and input data are not sufficient to provide the final answer in all cases. However, reevaluation of our past experiences based on current knowledge is necessary. Interaction between our real nonlinear, nonelastic,