Sunday 15 June 2014

Understanding The Job Of A Highway Engineer

By Carey Bourdier


Engineers are highly important professionals and these are the people who build homes for us, build our office buildings, build cars, and produce computers and appliances, and many others. Highway engineers on the other hand are the civil engineers who build and design our roads, city streets, highways and freeways, and those where we drive on.

Roads that are poorly and badly designed are difficult to drive on and can also be dangerous and deadly such that designing the safe and functional roads is of very high importance. The Romans designed and built the functional roads all throughout their empire, and this is where we can trace back the science and technology of designing roads, the ancient times.

Highway engineers will be tasked with many different jobs as they design or make improvements to roads. Before ground is even broken for a road, environmental impact studies must be completed and this includes studying the impact of the road on the natural environment, as well as the socio-economic impact the road will have in that area.

Traffic accidents are found to be leading causes of deaths due to road accidents in the U.S. and because of this, safety is given high concern by the highway engineer. The roads should be built with a high degree of safety for drivers of various kinds and also different driving conditions. The highway engineer will look at the grade of the road and also the angles of turns and curves, the width of the lanes and also the vertical and horizontal clearances. These are among several factors that the engineers will look into when they design the roads.

Tools that measure the angles in horizontal and vertical planes are used, and this is called a theodolite, one among the many tools used by engineers in the process. Measuring the angles of slopes should also be done, and a clinometers or sometimes called inclinometer is used in the process. A very important skill that a good highway engineer should have is angle measurement, and he should have this. Other instruments including surveying equipment used in the design and building of roads can be available from Warren Knight and can be purchased from them, including clinometers and theodolites.

If you wish to become a highway engineer, you will need to find a college or university with an accredited program of civil engineering. During your course of study you will take a variety of math and science classes as well as classes such as highway design and traffic engineering. Often a person can major in civil engineering with an emphasis in road or highway design.




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