Civil Engineer Ethics

Introduction
Engineers are responsible to maintain the environmental health and safety. There's different types of position an engineer can undergo such as civil, mechanical, chemical, environmental, and electrical. Subject to an civil engineering position, I will be in charge on design, construction, and maintenance. Civil engineers maintain road, bridges, and houses from falling when an earthquake or natural disaster occurs. On doing so, will help the environment have new structures and better resources. When discussing about better transportation meaning less traffic and a fresh/clean environment. In order to have all these components a civil engineer ethical consideration will be towards society and nature. Civil engineers will take into consideration a professional behavior to provide a safe environment which includes breaking down construction cost and consider environmental hazard.

For an engineering field that focuses on structural and environmental, it is require to know how to apply physics and mathematics. Mathematics is the fundamental of an engineering field because when dealing with a construction project of a road, it is important to know how to apply trigonometric, calculus, and differential equations to get started on a plan to construct a road. And to understand if the construction project will be stable. Physics will help plan the design of the construction project to have a better idea on how to design a road in this case. What need to be consider is the force of the surface and the force of gravity but as well the weight of the building. These factors will play an important role because the forces that exerts the road will determine if the road will stay in place.

 
Professional Behavior

A professional behavior for a civil engineer should be honesty, fairness, and equality to their colleagues. If a project consist on constructing a road outside Los Angeles. The first thing to do is start to analyze the surface of the environment such as testing the soils if constructing a road is a good or bad idea to the environment. When doing these types of testing it helps an engineering to determine if applying concrete or asphalt would work well for a project. When analyzing the results and discussing it to your colleagues you notice that something is wrong.

On doing so, you encounter that the project may have some errors. As a part as my job is to analyze the project more than once to know if the project may fail or not work at all. Our job is to inform the client immediately and be honest towards the situation. On explaining that the construction of the road might not be possible because the environment safety will be in danger. Our corporation will ask the clients to gives us more time to run more test and be sure if we have a solution. In this case, honesty is important because a civil engineer job is responsible of the people safety. If were not completely honest on that moment that you realize something may go wrong, the corporation reputation will go downhill. Even as a civil engineer job may be on the line because you're not taking any safety precautions . This is the reason why professional behavior should be considered at all times.

Construction Cost

A regular part of a my job is to break down construction cost. To do so analyzing the construction cost of  plans, building permits, utilities, and insurance. In order to do so, it is necessary to know how to apply math skill to figure out financial cost. These are just a few construction cost an engineer has to encounter. The cost of all these resources may come up to be a lot but knowing how to properly manage these cost is important especially when given a budget. The goal is not just to build but to encounter what is needed in the project. For example, were given the approval to begin a project to build a road outside the city. We need to take into consideration of what resources we need to get for the project to begin. With other civil engineers we start to break done construction cost on maintaining a budget. This will help improve the project to save money and to save resources as well. Below will be given a breakdown of construction cost of a road.  

Few examples of breaking down construction cost:

Items	Cost estimate
Plan/design	$ 1,490
Building permits	none
Insurance	$800
Trash containers	$500
Power and water	$2,001

During the construction of the road, civil engineers will make sure that the road will be built based on the plan and construction cost. The goal for a civil engineer is to keep a structure standing when a natural disaster occurs. One real life event that cost the collapse of a bridge due to a lack of knowledge of a civil engineer and due to lack of resources.

Golden Gate Bridge

An example of a natural hazard affecting a bridge where a lot of people were left with no type of transportation from San Francisco to Marin County. The San Francisco Oakland earthquake cause the collapse of the Golden Gate Bridge. During the earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 caused the bridge to bent, the 3 foot thick cable slacken, and the roadway split open. Most importantly the event caused a lot death and a lot of injuries. This situation that led to a lot of death, put people to be afraid and to be concern. What concern people is that engineers are not building safe structures to their environment. It caused thousands of people to have no transportation to go to their destination. People waited to cross but never got the chance to cross due to autorreys closing the bridge for people safety. What may had caused the Golden Bridge to collapse was the lack of engineers taking into consideration of a natural disaster occurring. Since, the bridge is located on under waters from San Francisco to Marin County, the bridge might not had a lot of support to keep it stable.The tension of the earthquake cause the underwater to move the bridge backwards and forwards. Probably the force of underwater and the force of gravity was not encounter.

These are just some ethically responsibilities I will encounter as a civil engineers as part of my job. As for the safety of the people and the safety of the environment will be my top priority. Creating stable structure will benefit society to live in a clean and safe place.

References:
https://www.jsce.or.jp/outline/soukai/85/rinnri-e.htm
http://www.mercurynews.com/2012/05/23/the-day-the-golden-gate-bridge-flattened/