• An engineer in the structural, mechanical, electrical, construction or other engineering fields of building design and construction.
• A licensed engineering professional in parts of the United States, where architectural engineering may include complete building design.

• In informal contexts, and formally in some places, a professional synonymous with or similar to an architect. In some languages, "architect" is literally translated as "architectural engineer".

Source: Wikipedia

Source: Wikipedia

The structural engineer is the lead designer on these structures, and often the sole designer. In the design of structures such as these, structural safety is of paramount importance (in the UK, designs for dams, nuclear power stations and bridges must be signed off by a chartered engineer).

Civil engineering structures are often subjected to very extreme forces, such as large variations in temperature, dynamic loads such as waves or traffic, or high pressures from water or compressed gases. They are also often constructed in corrosive environments, such as at sea, in industrial facilities or below ground.

Source: Wikipedia

Earthquake engineering is treating its subject structures like defensive fortifications in military engineering but for the warfare on earthquakes. Both earthquake and military general design principles are similar: be ready to slow down or mitigate the advance of a possible attacker.

The main objectives of earthquake engineering are:

• Understand interaction of structures with the shaky ground.
• Foresee the consequences of possible earthquakes.
• Design, construct and maintain structures to perform at earthquake exposure up to the expectations and in compliance with building codes.

Source: Wikipedia

It is traditionally broken into several sub-disciplines including environmental engineering, geotechnical engineering, structural engineering, transportation engineering, municipal or urban engineering, water resources engineering, materials engineering, coastal engineering, surveying, and construction engineering. Civil engineering takes place on all levels: in the public sector from municipal through to federal levels, and in the private sector from individual homeowners through to international companies.

Source: Wikipedia

Source: Wikipedia

Environmental engineers can be involved with pollution reduction, green engineering, and industrial ecology. Environmental engineering also deals with the gathering of information on the environmental consequences of proposed actions and the assessment of effects of proposed actions for the purpose of assisting society and policy makers in the decision making process.

Environmental engineering is the contemporary term for sanitary engineering, though sanitary engineering traditionally had not included much of the hazardous waste management and environmental remediation work covered by the term environmental engineering. Some other terms in use are public health engineering and environmental health engineering.

Source: Wikipedia

Some of the unique difficulties of geotechnical engineering are the result of the variability and properties of soil. Boundary conditions are often well defined in other branches of civil engineering, but with soil, clearly defining these conditions can be impossible. The material properties and behavior of soil are also difficult to predict due to the variability of soil and limited investigation.

This contrasts with the relatively well defined material properties of steel and concrete used in other areas of civil engineering. Soil mechanics, which define the behavior of soil, is complex due to stress-dependent material properties such as volume change, stress–strain relationship, and strength.

Source: Wikipedia

Source: Wikipedia

One who practices engineering is called an engineer, and those licensed to do so may have more formal designations such as European Engineer, Professional Engineer, Chartered Engineer, or Incorporated Engineer. The broad discipline of engineering encompasses a range of more specialized subdisciplines, each with a more specific emphasis on certain fields of application and particular areas of technology.

Engineering, much like science, is a broad discipline which is often broken down into several sub-disciplines. These disciplines concern themselves with differing areas of engineering work. Although initially an engineer will be trained in a specific discipline, throughout an engineer’s career the engineer may become multi-disciplined, having worked in several of the outlined areas. Historically the main Branches of Engineering are categorized as follows:   

• Aerospace Engineering – The design of aircraft, spacecraft and related topics.
• Chemical Engineering – The exploitation of chemical principles in order to carry out large scale chemical processing, as well as designing new speciality materials and fuels.
• Civil Engineering – The design and construction of public and private works, such as infrastructure (roads, railways, water supply and treatment etc.), bridges and buildings.
• Electrical Engineering – The design of electrical systems, such as transformers, as well as electronic goods.
• Mechanical Engineering – The design of physical or mechanical systems, such as engines, powertrains, kinematic chains and vibration isolation equipment.

Source: Wikipedia