Current Forensic Courses in Civil Engineering

The ASCE is taking a leadership role in the prevention of failures of engineered facilities. The Technical Council on Forensic Engineering Education Committee recently completed a survey of Civil Engineering programs in the U.S. which identified courses specifically dealing with failure of engineered facilities. This paper provides a brief discussion of such courses and recommends that students be continually reminded of lessons learned from failures, via introductory courses, incorporating failure case studies into undergraduate courses, graduate courses dealing with failure case studies, short courses and seminars, and increased availability of case study information.