| gradstudents.materials, structures & geosystems study track
Materials, Structures and Geosystems
Graduate study in materials, structures and geosystems engineering is highly interdisciplinary and offers students tremendous flexibility in crafting a graduate program that suits individual interests. Students can take advantage of research and courses taught not only within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering but also in other engineering departments, and Duke's other professional schools and institutes. For example, students can select from course and research opportunities within the strong nonlinear dynamics/adaptive control,
fluid dynamics and aerodynamics, thermal science and materials science programs of the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science.
Typical areas of study within this track include engineering mechanics, computational
mechanics, geomaterials and environmental geomechanics, engineering
and environmental geophysics, and structural engineering. The department also offers two study tracks within the field of environmental engineering: chemical and biological processes, and hydrology and fluid dynamics.
Materials, Structures and Geosystems Graduate Core Courses
Students must satisfy specific course requirements for each the chosen study track in addition to the required courses for a M.S./Ph.D. degree. Students should perceive their coursework not only as a preparation for the needs of their specific research but also as a foundation for their further professional growth in the years to come. The combination of departmental and track-specific core courses will greatly enhance that growth.
Materials, Structures and Geosystems Track Specific Courses
Each track is associated with a sequence of core courses that must
be satisfactorily completed by the student and is supported by graduate
faculty members who are committed to teach the core courses on a
regular basis. Students may request that their Qualifying
Exam Committee (QEC) grant a waiver for a departmental or track
core course requirement. They must document previous knowledge of
the content of the core course. The documentation submitted to their
QEC may include, but is not limited to: prior course work, evidenced
by course outlines, textbooks used, and course descriptions from
official bulletins or catalogs. The Director of Graduate Studies
(DGS) must approve the waiver in writing.
Admitted students with academic backgrounds outside of civil and environmental engineering may need to take some CEE undergraduate level courses in order to be prepared for graduate level coursework. Some of these courses may be counted towards the M.S. or Ph.D. degree requirements. Please consult with the Director of Graduate Studies.
Structures Core Courses:
|
Track |
Track-specific core courses:
three courses from the following areas |
|
CE 200 Engineering Data Analysis
CE 202 Applied Mathematics for Engineers |
Materials, Structures and Geo-systems |
1. Field Equations |
CE 201 Continuum Mechanics, or CE
206 Elasticity |
| 2. Computational Mechanics |
CE 251 Engineering Analysis and Computational
Mechanics, or CE 254 Intro to Finite Element Method |
| 3. Advanced Dynamics |
CE 272 Wave Propagation in Elastic and Poroelastic
Media, or CE 283 Structural Dynamics |
Note: Undergraduate students can focus on structural engineering and mechanics, systems engineering and transportation, or architectural engineering as part of a B.S.E. degree in civil engineering. Dual major and five-year BS/MS programs are available.
Faculty
- Fred K. Boadu, Associate Professor - Engineering and environmental geophysics. Inverse theory applied to groundwater modeling and contaminant transport. Environmental mechanics. Characterization of fractured media using geophysical methods. Contamination detection and assessment using geophysical methods. Application of inverse theory and artificial neural networks to engineering and environmental problems.
- John E. Dolbow, Associate Professor - Theoretical and applied mechanics, computational fracture mechanics, nonlinear interfacial constitutive laws, finite element and mesh free methods.
- Henri P. Gavin, Associate Professor - Seismic vibration suppression, non-linear and semi-active control, vibration monitoring, laboratory and full-scale experiments.
- Tomasz A. Hueckel, Professor, Director of Graduate Studies- Theoretical soil and rock mechanics, theory of plasticity, environmental mechanics.
- Tod A. Laursen, Professor and Senior Associate Dean for Education - Structural and solid mechanics, inelastic material modeling, large deformation kinematics, finite-element concepts.
- Joseph C. Nadeau, Associate Professor of the Practice- Theoretical and applied mechanics, micromechanics, composite materials, probabilistic methods.
- Henry Petroski, Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor - Failure analysis, design theory, engineering case histories.
- Jeffrey T. Scruggs, Assistant Professor - mechatronic systems for vibrating structures, nonlinear control of systems with constrained actuation, reliability-based structural design and control, semiactive vibration suppression, dynamics and control of tensegrity structures, and energy harvesting applications .
- Lawrence Virgin, Professor and Chair - Behavior of nonlinear dynamical systems.
|