Engineering Research and Soil Corrosion

Abstract

IN February 1935, the Council of the Institution of Civil Engineers adopted a more active policy in regard, to engineering research and constituted a Research Committee with wide terms of reference. Previously, specific problems had been investigated by committees appointed specially for each case, and their work produced results of great importance. The growth in scientific knowledge and in the size and complexity of the problems confronting the engineer, and also the great changes which have been effected in the materials with which he has to work, brought about a realization of the necessity for greater understanding of the scientific basis of engineering practice. The Committee was entrusted with the duties of making recommendations of subjects for research and investigation, and of maintaining contact with other bodies engaged in similar work. While it has mainly limited its activities to problems in branches of engineering not ordinarily included in the programmes of the more specialized institutions, it has actively co-operated with many of these in researches of common interest.