• Inactive for Year: 2024/25

• Module Leader(s): Dr Jean Hall
• Lecturer: Dr Sarah Dunn

• Owning School: Engineering
• Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus

Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Aims

•       To introduce and define sustainability, the role of civil engineering in sustainable development, and the challenges and context of climate change;
•       To develop awareness and understanding of systems: the inter-dependence of sub-systems dealt with in other themes, resource flows and life-cycles;
•       To integrate the knowledge and techniques developed in other themes within a single design case study;
•       To develop the ability to carry out conceptual design of components with recognition of their place and role in systems;
•       Review the requirements and produce conceptual designs for a small sustainable development, strongly linked to other themes.
•       Reflect on group working strategies throughout project.
•       To develop transferable and graduate skills that will be essential throughout the student’s studies and career. Particularly, Information Literacy and Writing skills will be introduced, practised and assessed.

Summary:
DSES1 aims to introduce and substantiate the concept of sustainability, and put civil engineering theory into a practical context. The module is the first of a co-ordinated programme of modules in the theme of Integrated Design of Sustainable Engineering Solutions in Stage 1, 2 and 3. Lectures are delivered by a variety of specialists from across the gamut of civil engineering and geosciences, both from the school and outside.
This module will introduce students to the wider issues associated with being a civil engineer in the 21st Century, specifically, the human and social dimensions that are shaping our approach to our work. Demonstrating how the ingenuity and technical ability of an engineer works with the social, economic, environmental and legislative aspects of our society is an essential part of an engineer’s early education.
The process of conceptual design is introduced through a small practical task in Semester 1. The integration of knowledge and skills from other themes is achieved via a sustainable development case study task. This aims to stimulate students with interesting design problems, with a free hand to propose innovative solutions. Some quantitative elements are provided, primarily in estimating demand or requirements for water, energy, transport etc. and in simple assessments of proposals in terms of practicality and cost. This design task provides the integration between other Stage 1 modules in other themes: see syllabus for detail.
The sustainable development topic and specific location will develop from year to year as more data sets become available, and different aspects are emphasised. It is undertaken in teams of 5 or 6, with team meetings at least fortnightly. The work is supported by lectures, interactive sessions and field trips where appropriate. The culmination is a presentation of the team’s designs to an audience of practising engineers, local authority staff (also involved in design sessions), staff and peers.
Engineering communication and visualisation is introduced through sketching principles in 2D and 3D through lectures and workshop sessions.
Methods of group working and reflective analysis are introduced and this is assessed through an individual reflective report submitted at the end of the module.
The Stage 1 Induction Trip forms the first part of this module, and is an overnight residential trip designed to introduce students and staff to each other and develop interpersonal and team working skills. The module develops core skills essential for any graduate, such as teamwork, communication, organisation, and problem solving.

Outline Of Syllabus

Lecture series outline is broadly worked into 4 themes of lectures covering Design and planning, Systems and sustainability, a Case Study and Professionalism.
Theme 1 - Design and planning: lectures covering topics such as what is design?; Communicating the design; Teamwork considerations; Energy flow mapping; Resource flows and master planning for sustainable developments; consideration of the whole system, location and vulnerability.
Theme 2 – Systems and sustainability: This areas covers sustainability and civil engineering in the wider context and includes lectures on: Three pillars of Sustainability; The rise of the systems approach in engineering; Property/Project Life Cycles; Virtuous Links; Complex feedback loops; The Five Capitals; 12 Guiding principles to Sustainable Engineering; Key Players; Key Legislation.
Theme 3 – Sustainable development design case study: This theme is conducted through a series of workshops and timetabled group sessions focused primarily on considering demand estimates and resource evaluation for the development whilst proposing solutions for water, energy, transport considerations for the development. Potential field visits to the proposed site may be incorporated if feasible. This case study will also allow the practical introduction to the use of sustainability assessment tools for assessing options into a sustainable development design to be used.
Theme 4 - Professional Engineer. Lectures cover groupwork and leadership, communication and Health and Safety introductions through Risk Assessments.
In support of the lecture series, there is a Newcastle Town Trail field exercise and a site visit to a "live" Civil Engineering project.
There is a ‘Visualisation and BIM’ thread through the Civil Engineering programmes and Design of Sustainable Engineering Systems (DSES) project modules in particular. As part of this, there is a session on manual sketching and a practical introduction to the 3D visualization tool SketchUp. Students are required to submit a manual sketching exercise and are expected to utilize SketchUp in their final reports and presentations. There will be a session to introduce the students to the concept of Building Information Modelling (BIM), which will be reinforced with more details and case studies in DSES2 (CEG2001) and beyond.
This module relies on inputs from other themes across the degree programme and is as follows:
Module : Skills : Application
Engineering surveying (10): Traversing, setting out, interpretation: Survey data of section of site (virtual)
GIS (10): Layout of the built environment using GIS, Sketchup. Visualisation – 3D of selected buildings. Flood plain delineation
Mechanics of Materials (20) : Understanding of materials : Force diagrams: Selected element (beam, column) design. Selection of materials for sub-set of buildings: use in resource flow analysis and carbon footprint estimation
Fluid Mechanics (10) : Hydrostatic and buoyancy forces : Flood loadings on bridge and channel-bed gas-pipe
Environment Systems (10) : Catchment water balance : Carbon cycle : river pollution. Estimate of river flows from rainfall data: simple flow duration curve and flood flow. Design spec for WWT plant.
Geotech Properties of Soils and rocks (10) : Interpretation of geological data. Description of soil. Assessment of ground (coal field).
Eng Mathematics (20) : generic mathematical skills. None explicitly

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

The Stage 1 Induction trip provides an introduction to many core skills (learning outcomes A4, B7, D8), along with other key skills relevant to employability such as interpersonal communication and adaptability).
The lectures provide stimulation (learning outcomes A4, A8, D8), convey design concepts and ideas (learning outcomes A1, A2, A7, A8), and provide instruction in the design process (learning outcomes A1, A2, A7, A8, B1, B2) and in communication skills (learning outcomes B2, D7).
The small group teaching activities provide advice and promote the practice of team work, planning and record-keeping (learning outcomes B1, B2, B3, B7, C3, C6, C7, C8). Staff and teaching assistants circulate around teams to discuss team tasks and provide advice during timetabled team sessions. Staff and teaching assistants act as line manager/clients as the design tasks develop.
The remainder of the time left in timetabled team sessions is designed for unsupervised student-led group learning to take place. Teams are also encouraged to meet and carry out tasks in their own time outside of the timetabled sessions, and this also contributes both to the estimated group learning total time and private study estimated time.
Most of the intellectual, practical and transferable skills are developed further during group work and during additional private study. The fieldwork will be an exploratory visit to a "real-live" sustainable development in order to visualise to the students the "real" engineering issues in the design process.

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessment

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The assessment of this module consists of three pieces of written coursework and a practical submission (sketching) and a short group presentation. The knowledge outcomes are demonstrated through the submission of two group design reports. Drawing and communication skills are achieved through the submission of a practical sketching exercise in Semester 1 and participation of a group presentation in Semester 2. Reflection and group working skills are assessed in preparation for the transferable skills required working in industry.

Reading Lists

• CEG1004's Reading List

Timetable

• Timetable Website: www.ncl.ac.uk/timetable/
• CEG1004's Timetable