Civil Engineering PhD

Major: Civil Engineering
Degree Awarded: Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Calendar Type: Quarter
Minimum Required Credits: 90.0 
Co-op Option: None
Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) code: 14.0801
Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) code: 17-2015

About the Program

Objectives

The graduate program in civil engineering offers students the opportunity to develop a more fundamental and complete understanding of the principles that govern their field as well as current design methodology. Students are encouraged to be innovative and imaginative in their quest for recognizing, stating, analyzing and solving engineering problems.

Civil Engineering is inherently an interdisciplinary enterprise that is centered on the design, construction, and operation of the build environment. Civil Engineering PhD graduates may include students with expertise in one or more of the following sub-disciplines (usually housed in civil/environmental engineering and elsewhere in traditional disciplinary constructs or newly developing fields or focus of expertise):

• Structural engineering
• Geotechnical/geosynthetics engineering
• Transportation engineering
• Water resources engineering
• Sustainable engineering

Graduates are engineers and researchers trained in integrated building design and operation practices who can work on interdisciplinary teams that are able to develop creative solutions combined with technological advances to produce functional, efficient, attractive and sustainable building infrastructure.

Additional Information

For more information, visit the Doctorate in Civil Engineering program and Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering webpages.

Admission Requirements

Applicants to the PhD in Civil Engineering must have a minimum of a Bachelor of Science degree. The application package will include: 

• undergraduate and graduate transcripts
• three letters of recommendation from faculty or professionals who can evaluate the applicant's promise as a graduate student
• GRE scores (optional)
• a written statement of career and educational goals.

Competitive applicants will possess an undergraduate GPA of 3.30 or higher and GRE scores above the 60th percentile.

For additional information on how to apply, visit Drexel's Admissions page for Civil Engineering.

Degree Requirements

Requirements

The following general requirements must be satisfied to complete the PhD in Civil Engineering:

• Establishment of plan of study with PhD advisor
• Completion of 90.0 quarter credit hours (or 45 credit hours post-Masters), including taking certain qualifying courses
• Passing of PhD candidacy exam
• Approval of PhD dissertation proposal
• Defense of PhD dissertation

Students entering the PhD program with an approved Master of Science (MS) degree must take 45 credit hours of coursework and research to be approved by their PhD advisor. Students entering the PhD program without an approved MS degree can either complete the 45-credit hour Master of Science in Civil Engineering (MSCE) degree followed by an additional 45 credit hours post MSCI, or they can choose to not obtain the MSCE and complete only the required "core" courses for the PhD degree with the completion of a total of 90 required credit hours. Students with previous graduate coursework may transfer no more than 15 quarter credits (equivalent to 12 semester credit) from approved institutions if deemed equivalent to courses offered within the department.

All PhD students are required to meet all milestones of the program. The total credit amount, candidacy exam, and dissertation are university requirements. Additional requirements are determined by the department offering the degree.

Qualifying Courses

To satisfy the qualifying requirements, students must earn a grade of B+ or better in the five required "core" courses (depending on the program of study) taken at Drexel and must earn an overall GPA of 3.5 or better in these courses.

Undergraduate courses, independent studies, research credits, and courses from other departments cannot be counted toward the qualifying requirements. Students progress toward these requirements will be assessed by the PhD advisor following the student's first year in the PhD program. For more information, visit the Civil Engineering's PhD Program Requirements page.

Candidacy Exam

After approximately one year of study beyond the MS degree or completion of the required "core" courses, if their GPA is greater than or equal to 3.5, PhD students can and must take a candidacy examination consisting of written and oral parts. Successful completion of the candidacy exam enables a student to progress from the designation of PhD student to PhD candidate. The candidacy exam represents the first exam in a series of three that comprise the PhD curriculum.

The Civil Engineering candidacy examination serves to define the student's research domain and to evaluate the student's knowledge and understanding of various fundamental and foundational results in that domain. The student is expected to be able to read, understand, analyze, and explain advanced technical results in a specialized area of Civil Engineering at an adequate level of detail. The candidacy examination will evaluate those abilities by asking a student to summarize literature and/or undertake a small research project. The student will prepare a written summary of review and/or project results, present the outcome orally, and answer questions about the report or presentation. The candidacy examination committee will evaluate the written report, the oral presentation, and the student's answers. The candidacy committee membership must follow the requirements of the Graduate College and must be approved by the Graduate College.

Students with a GPA < 3.5 do not meet eligibility requirements to sit for the candidacy exam. In this case, a student may petition a Graduate Advisor to take a Preliminary Written Exam (PWE). A committee will be formed consisting of three members selected from the pool of faculty in the field of research interest of the student and the pool of faculty who taught the courses taken by the student during the preceding terms. An exam will be developed consisting of a series of questions/problems prepared by the three written exam committee members. The written exam, while fixed in duration, may be composed of several different problem-solving assignments. Additionally, the exam may be closed book or open book or a combination thereof. The student will consult with the advisor to become acquainted with the specific rules of the exam. The exam will be graded by the PWE Committee to determine if the student may sit for the candidacy exam.

Dissertation Proposal

After successfully completing the candidacy examination, the PhD candidate must prepare a dissertation proposal that outlines, in detail, the specific problems that will be solved during the research that is conducted to complete the PhD dissertation. The quality of the dissertation proposal should be at the level of a peer-reviewed proposal to a federal funding agency, or a publishable scientific paper. The candidate is responsible for sending the dissertation proposal to the PhD committee no less than two weeks before the scheduled oral presentation. The PhD committee membership need not be the same as the candidacy exam committee, but it follows the same requirements and must be approved by the Graduate College. The oral presentation involves a presentation by the candidate followed by a period during which the committee will ask questions. The committee will then determine if the dissertation proposal has been accepted. The dissertation proposal can be repeated at most once if the proposal was not accepted.

A dissertation proposal must be approved within two years of becoming a PhD candidate. After approval of the dissertation proposal, the committee may meet to review the progress of the research.

Dissertation Defense

After successfully completing the dissertation proposal, the PhD candidate must conduct the necessary research and publish the results in a PhD dissertation. The dissertation must be submitted to the PhD committee no less than two weeks prior to the scheduled oral defense. The oral presentation by the candidate is open to the public, followed by an unspecified period during which the committee will ask questions. The question-and-answer period is not open to the public. The committee will then determine if the candidate has passed or failed the examination. If not passed, the candidate will be granted one more chance to pass the final defense.

The PhD degree is awarded for original research on a significant Civil Engineering problem. Graduate students will work closely with individual faculty members to pursue the PhD degree. PhD dissertation research is usually supported by a research grant from a government agency or an industrial contract. Many doctoral students take three to five years of full-time graduate study to complete their degrees.

Program Requirements 

Post Bachelor of Science Degree - Geotechnical Engineering

*

Please note that the number of research credits may be reduced based on the number of Technical Electives that are required.

Post Bachelor of Science Degree - Structural Engineering 

*

Please note that the number of research credits may be reduced based on the number of Technical Electives that are required.

Post Bachelor of Science Degree - Water Resources Engineering 

*

Please note that the number of research credits may be reduced based on the number of Technical Electives that are required.

Post Master of Science Degree 

*

Please note that the number of research credits may be reduced based on the number of Technical Electives that are required.

Sample Plan of Study

Upon entering the PhD program, each student will be assigned an academic advisor, and with the help of the advisor will develop and file a plan of study (which can be brought up to date when necessary). The plan of study should be filed with the graduate advisor and uploaded to the E-Forms system no later than the end of the first term. The E-Forms system will be used to track program progression and milestones. Sample Plans of Study are presented below:

Post Bachelor of Science Degree - Geotechnical/Geosynthetics Engineering

Post Bachelor of Science Degree - Structural Engineering

Post Bachelor of Science Degree - Water Resources Engineering

Post Master of Science Degree

Facilities

The Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering Department laboratories provide students with fully equipped space for education and research opportunities. 

Structural and Geotechnical Research Laboratory Facilities and Equipment

The geotechnical and structural engineering research labs at Drexel University provide a forum to perform large-scale experimentation across a broad range of areas including infrastructure preservation and renewal, structural health monitoring, geosynthetics, nondestructive evaluation, earthquake engineering, and novel ground modification approaches among others.

The laboratory is equipped with different data acquisition systems (MTS, Campbell Scientific, and National Instruments) capable of recording strain, displacement, tilt, load and acceleration time histories. An array of sensors including LVDTs, wire potentiometers, linear and rotational accelerometers, and load cells are also available. Structural testing capabilities include two 220kips capacity loading frames (MTS 311 and Tinius Olsen), in addition to several medium capacity testing frames (Instron 1331 and 567 and MTS 370 testing frames), two 5-kips MTS actuators for dynamic testing and one degree of freedom 22kips ANCO shake table. The laboratory also features a phenomenological physical model which resembles the dynamic features of common highway bridges and is used for field testing preparation and for testing different measurement devices.  

The Woodring Laboratory hosts a wide variety of geotechnical, geosynthetics, and materials engineering testing equipment. The geotechnical engineering testing equipment includes Geotac unconfined compression and a triaxial compression testing device, ring shear apparatus, constant rate of strain consolidometer, an automated incremental consolidometer, an automated Geotac direct shear device and a large-scale consolidometer (12” by 12” sample size). Other equipment includes a Fisher pH and conductivity meter as well as a Brookfield rotating viscometer. Electronic and digital equipment include FLIR SC 325 infrared camera for thermal measurements, NI Function generators, acoustic emission sensors and ultrasonic transducers, signal conditioners, and impulse hammers for nondestructive testing.

The geosynthetics testing equipment in the Woodring lab includes pressure cells for incubation and a new differential scanning calorimetry device including the standard-OIT. Materials testing equipment that is available through the materials and chemical engineering departments includes a scanning electron microscope, liquid chromatography, and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.

The Building Science and Engineering Group (BSEG) research space is also located in the Woodring Laboratory. This is a collaborative research unit working at Drexel University with the objective of achieving more comprehensive and innovative approaches to sustainable building design and operation through the promotion of greater collaboration between diverse sets of research expertise. Much of the BSEG work is simulation or model based.  Researchers in this lab also share some instrumentation with the DARRL lab (see below). 

Environmental Engineering Laboratory Facilities and Equipment

The environmental engineering laboratories at Drexel University allow faculty and student researchers access to state-of-the-art equipment needed to execute a variety of experiments. These facilities are located in the Alumni Engineering Laboratory Building and includes approximately 2000 SF shared laboratory space, and a 400 SF clean room for cell culture and PCR.

The major equipment used in this laboratory space consists of: Roche Applied Science LightCyclerÔ 480 Real-time PCR System, Leica fluorescence microscope with phase contrast and video camera, Spectrophotometer, Zeiss stereo microscope with heavy duty boom stand, fluorescence capability, and a SPOT cooled color camera, BIORAD iCycler thermocycler for PCR, gel readers, transilluminator and electrophoresis setups, temperature controlled circulator with immersion stirrers suitable for inactivation studies at volumes up to 2 L per reactor, BSL level 2 fume hood, laminar hood, soil sampling equipment, Percival Scientific environmental chamber (model 1-35LLVL), custom-built rainfall simulator.

The Drexel Air Resources Research Laboratory (DARRL) is located in the Alumni Engineering Laboratory Building and contains state-of-the-art aerosol measurement instrumentation including a Soot Particle Aerosol Mass Spectrometer (Aerodyne Research Inc.), mini-Aerosol Mass Spectrometer, (Aerodyne Research Inc.), Scanning Electrical Mobility Sizer (Brechtel Manufacturing), Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (TSI Inc.), Fast Mobility Particle Sizer (TSI Inc.), Centrifugal Particle Mass Analyzer (Cambustion Ltd.), GC-FID, ozone monitors, and other instrumentation. These instruments are used for the detailed characterization of the properties of particles less than 1 micrometer in diameter including: chemical composition, size, density, and shape or morphology. 

In addition to the analytical instrumentation in DARRL, the laboratory houses several reaction chambers. These chambers are used for controlled experiments meant to simulate chemical reactions that occur in the indoor and outdoor environments. The reaction chambers vary in size from 15 L to 1 m3, and allow for a range of experimental conditions to be conducted in the laboratory.

Computer Equipment and Software

The Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineering (CAEE) Department at Drexel University has hardware and software capabilities for students to conduct research. The CAEE department operates a computer lab that is divided into two sections; one open access room, and a section dedicated to teaching. The current computer lab has 25 desktop computers that are recently updated to handle resource intensive GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and image processing software. There are a sufficient number of B&W and color laser printers that can be utilized for basic printing purposes.

Drexel University has site-licenses for a number of software, such as ESRITM ArcGIS 10, Visual Studio, SAP 2000, STAAD, Abaqus and MathworksTM Matlab. The Information Resources & Technology (IRT) department at Drexel University provides support (e.g., installation, maintenance and troubleshooting) to the above-mentioned software. It is currently supporting the lab by hosting a software image configuration that provides a series of commonly used software packages, such as MS Office and ADOBE Acrobat among others. As a part of ESRI campus license (the primary maker of GIS applications, i.e. ArcGIS) the department has access to a suite of seated licenses for GIS software with necessary extensions (e.g., LIDAR Analyst) required for conducting research.  

Program Level Outcomes

Upon completion of the program, graduates will be prepared to:

• Identify, formulate, and solve complex engineering problems by applying principles of engineering, science, and mathematics
• Apply engineering design to produce solutions that meet specified needs with consideration of public health, safety, and welfare, as well as global, cultural, social, environmental, and economic factors
• Communicate effectively with a range of audiences
• Recognize ethical and professional responsibilities in engineering situations and make informed judgments, which must consider the impact of engineering solutions in global, economic, environmental, and societal contexts
• Function effectively on a team whose members together provide leadership, create a collaborative and inclusive environment, establish goals, plan tasks, and meet objectives
• Develop and conduct appropriate experimentation, analyze and interpret data, and use engineering judgment to draw conclusions
• Acquire and apply new knowledge as needed, using appropriate learning strategies

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty

Emeritus Faculty