While contemporary civil engineering projects are increasingly complex, the cognitive abilities of the decision maker remain limited. There is a conflict between the complexity that is required to describe a scenario with all its relevant properties and the limited number of ideas that can be included in rational considerations and...
Engineering is largely concerned with models and modelling. Models provide a context in which decisions are made. Here the modelling process is considered in a general sense and then the relationship with engineering models is developed. For understanding, a first step is to differentiate and categorize. Thus ten types of...
The responsibilities which civil engineers, and particularly the engineer of record, accept are considered. The interaction with other decision makers such as the owner, stakeholders, the law and contractors results in complexity that can be partially resolved by the introduction of protocols in the form of regulations and codes of...