Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Course Information

Graduate Student and Senior Elective Courses

For elective planning, CEE provides a list of course descriptions for CEE technical electives and graduate courses for the next academic quarter. These are published prior to the official opening of the registration period and are subject to change.

400-level: undergraduate courses

500-level: graduate courses

600-level: doctoral courses

NOTE: Though 500-level courses may be available to undergraduate seniors and bachelor's + master's students, we encourage students to meet with the instructor before registering to set expectations for success in the course.

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Summer 2024
Graduate and Senior Elective Courses

See the PSU Academic Calendar for registration dates. These are published prior to the official opening of the registration period and are subject to change.

Structural
CourseDescriptionPrerequisites
CE 4/532 Structural Steel Design (4 credits)Design of components of steel structures based on allowable strength design and load and resistance factor design methods.
 

Undergraduates: CE 321 + CE 325

Graduates: graduate standing

Environmental / Water Resources
CourseDescriptionPrerequisites
CE 485/585: Environmental Cleanup and Restoration  (4 credits)Survey of procedures for evaluating risks posed by hazardous waste sites and the cleanup steps that lead to an acceptable restoration of such sites. Topics include U.S. environmental law and regulation, site investigations, risk assessment, and a focus on actual case studies, many in Portland and the Pacific Northwest.
 

Undergrads: Admission to the Upper Division

Graduates: graduate standing

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Fall 2024
Graduate and Senior Elective Courses

Please see the PSU Academic Calendar for more information on registration dates.

Environmental / Water Resources
CourseDescriptionPrerequisites
CE 474/574: Unit Operations of Environmental Engineering (4 credits)Unit operations of water and wastewater treatment; pretreatment; sedimentation, filtration, aeration, disinfection, sludge treatment and disposal, advanced waste-water treatment processes.

Undergrads: CE 371 or CE 487 or Ch 223

Graduates: graduate standing

CE 487/587: Aquatic Chemistry (4 credits)Aqueous chemistry in natural water systems: simple-to-complex acid/base chemistry; titration curves; buffer strength; acid/base chemistry of carbon dioxide in open and closed systems; alkalinity as system variable (blood); mineral dissolution/precipitation (metal carbonates); redox chemistry: pe-pH, redox succession/organic loading/dissolved oxygen loss, nitrate reduction, iron oxide dissolution, hydrogen sulfide production, methane formation. This is the same course as Ch 487 and can be taken only once for credit.

Undergrads: CE 371 or Ch 233

Graduates: graduate standing

CE 566/666: Environmental Data Analysis (4 credits)Application of probabilistic and statistical models to the description of environmental data with a focus on hydrology and water quality. Graphical and quantitative techniques of exploratory data analysis, selection and fitting of appropriate probability distributions, simple and multiple and multivariate regression and their applications to analysis and modeling, and detection of changes and trends in environmental time series. This is the same course as ESM 566 and may be taken only once for credit.Graduate students: graduate standing
CE 573/673: Numerical Methods in Environmental and Water Resources Engineering (4 credits)Introduction to the mathematical solution of partial differential equations by finite difference and finite element techniques. Development of solution approaches to water quality and hydraulic problems in surface and groundwater systems. Analysis of model sensitivities, calibration and verification.

Undergraduates: senior standing

Graduate students: graduate standing

Transportation
CourseDescriptionPrerequisites
CE 414/514: Transportation Seminar (1 credit)This weekly seminar features a different speaker each week covering various topics in transportation research and practice. The topics cover all modes of transportation, with a focus on current practice. This course may be taken for credit up to three times.

Undergraduates: Upper Division admission

Graduates: graduate standing

CE 458/558: Public Transportation Systems (4 credits)Performance characteristics of public transportation systems, with emphasis on urban systems. Planning, design, and operational issues related to public transportation systems. Emerging technologies.

Undergraduates: CE 351

Graduates: graduate standing

CE 563: Transportation and Logistics Optimization and Modeling (4 credits)Introduces students to mathematical modeling techniques including linear and non-linear programming, duality, Lagrangian, quadratic and geometric models, integer programming, basic network models and their application to transportation and logistics systems/problems. The focus is on model formulation, complexity analysis, and the utilization of software to obtain solutions and analyze system properties. The concepts taught in this course focus on civil engineering systems/ applications with an emphasis on transportation and logistics problems.

Undergraduates: CE 351 + contact instructor for permission to register

Graduates: graduate standing

Structural
CourseDescriptionPrerequisites
CE 410/510: Reliability & RIsk Based CEE (4 credits)TBATBA
CE 434: Principles of Reinforced Concrete (4 credits)Loads, load factors and structural safety, ultimate strength analysis; short column behavior, design of simple and continuous beams; one-way slabs; serviceability and detailing requirements with reference to current codes.Undergraduates: CE 321 + CE 325
CE 510/610: Sensing & Monitoring of Structures: Fundamentals (4 credits)This course introduces students to the fundamentals of sensors and sensing, data acquisition, signal processing, and data visualization and interpretation used in non-destructive testing, structural monitoring, and modeling of existing structures.

Undergraduates: CE 325

Graduates: graduate standing

CE 515: Machine Learning Methods for Civil and Environmental Engineers (4 credits)Fundamentals of supervised learning and common machine learning models including linear and logistic regression, support vector machines, artificial neural networks, and decision trees/random forests; Hands-on implementation using Python-based tools such as Scikit-Learn, Keras, and TensorFlow.

Undergraduates: contact instructor for permission to register

Graduates: graduate standing

Geotech
CourseDescriptionPrerequisites
CE 447/547: Slope Stability Analysis (4 credits)Covers soil strength as it relates to slope stability (drained strength, undrained strength, residual strength), principles of slope stability analysis and applications to natural and man-made slopes, available instrumentation to monitor slope stability, and methods to mitigate or increase the factor of safety of marginal slopes.

Undergraduates: CE 341

Graduates: graduate standing

CE 541/641: Advanced Soil Mechanics (4 credits)Study of the advanced principles of soil behavior related to stress-strain, shear strength, permeability, and consolidation.

Undergraduates: CE 341

Graduates: graduate standing

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