Teaching Computational Software to Civil Engineering Students

Learning how to model and simulate structures such as a building or bridge is the necessary task for civil engineers. Modern software tools allow for a new approach to modeling which makes it accessible to civil engineering (CE) students. Software application for civil engineering (SACE) courses has recently been developed by the school of civil engineering, Dalian Jiaotong University, China. This discipline enables undergraduate students to gain hands-on experience in design. This paper presents an effective method for training students in the methodology of modeling and simulation. Students can be able to quickly build simple models themselves for design ideas. The article reviews the infrastructure that is created to make the SACE course sequence a reality. The article also describes results based on student successes during each step of the model process.