A common senior design project in civil engineering is to design a bridge, or more commonly, design a replacement for an existing bridge. The team must find an existing bridge in which a renovated or a replacement bridge would be ecologically, aesthetically, and functionally beneficial. The project should be set up as a proposal with the final project including design plans, construction plans, needed permits, costs and compliance standards for the surrounding area.
Improvements such as designing an addition to an existing building is also a project choice for seniors in civil engineering. Students may elect to design a building from the ground up; however, this requires much more work, whereas an existing building already has the ground work done for the design processes and many of the permits are already completed to build on the plot of land. A proposal for an add-on should include a complete building plan and necessary permits to build. Depending on the location, the building plan should include detailed precautions for snow loading on the roof, earthquake resistance, flood protection.
Students who are studying environmental engineering within the civil engineering sector could look into waste areas that need containment. A design for a containment wall would fulfill the requirements needed to complete a senior design project within environmental engineering. The proposal should include the benefits of spending money and resources to build the containment wall as well as detailed building plans and information on the environment in which the wall will be built.
Students could also design a water treatment plan for areas with contaminated water, such as highway run-off, farm lands or power plants. The plan should include a practical cost-effective strategy for treating the water in the area. Students must explain why the existing method of water treatment or lack of treatment is environmentally harmful and why their plan is better than the existing method. A detailed building plan for the proposed idea must be included.