So what did civil engineers ever do for us?
Ahead of the Institution of Civil Engineers’ 200th birthday in 2018, TheBusinessdesk.com meets some of the North West engineers behind Britain’s infrastructure.
Mohammad Fazal is a civil engineer and the son of a civil engineer. Growing up in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Mohammad was always fascinated by the stories his father would tell him about the engineering projects he worked on.
He said: “I remember as a child looking at my dad’s design drawings and listening to stories of his projects and the engineering challenges he faced. That was what inspired me to become a civil engineer. It’s a great career, and I have worked on projects located in Bangladesh, Denmark, Gibraltar, Qatar, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates and the UK.”
Mohammad was educated at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, and in 2007 he earned a PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of Manchester. Now 43, Mohammad lives in Sale, Greater Manchester with his wife and two young daughters and works for Ramboll, which employs 13,000 engineers, designers and management consultants worldwide. Mohammad is one of the civil engineers behind the progressive improvement of the UK’s road infrastructure.
Highways England has committed to making the biggest investment to our road network in more than half a century – meaning £1.5bn investment in the North West over five years, including 80 miles of smart motorways, and with every £1 spent reckoned to bring £3 of economic benefit.
As part of this, important work has recently been completed on the A556 between Knutsford and Bowdon. Major work ongoing includes the Manchester Smart Motorways project on the M60 and M62, and the resurfacing of the Gathurst Viaduct on the M6. Imminent major projects include improving the A5036 access to the Port of Liverpool, and a new bypass on the A585 at Little Singleton.
The A57/A628 Trans-Pennine programme will improve connectivity between Manchester and Sheffield. Junction 19 of the M6 is to be improved, and a new junction is planned on the M56 improving access to the Mersey Gateway bridge at Runcorn.
Behind each of these projects you’ll find a wide range of engineering skills and specialisms. Mohammad Fazal is a geotechnical engineer.
It’s his job to evaluate the soil and other components of the earth to determine whether the ground beneath a future structure is substantial enough to support its foundations. If an infrastructure project is built on or in the ground – whether that’s roads, tunnels, railways, bridges, dams, buildings, ports, offshores or landfills – you need a geotechnical engineer like Mohammad.
He went on: “What being a geotechnical engineer translates to in practice is finding out whether a particular site is a good one for the project in question, working with colleagues in the project team and beyond. And that makes for a highly varied workload. On a typical day, I’ll deal with clients, I’ll manage resources and coordinate design team meetings. I’ll write reports and produce drawings and calculation spreadsheets, or I’ll work on proposals for new projects.”
Mohammad and his fellow geotechnical engineers provide much of the thinking behind the engineering solutions to real world problems. The job is about all kinds of problem-solving – in some respects the bread and butter of a civil engineer’s occupation.
Perhaps predictably for someone whose career has delivered results from Denmark to Singapore, Mohammad’s work for Ramboll includes projects outside North West England. For example, he worked on the A477 improvements between St Clears and Red Roses in South West Wales. This was a new strategic road linking the M4 motorway to the ferry port of Pembroke Dock. It required approximately 45,000 cubic metres of earthworks including a cutting 25 metres deep, an embankment 20 metres high and a total of 15 new highway structures. The new road has made a difference to people’s everyday lives, improving safety and cutting journey times. And the project team won the prestigious George Gibby Award from ICE Wales Cymru.
As a civil engineer, Mohammad Fazal has followed in his father’s footsteps, and his work has taken him across continents via the Magherafelt bypass in Ireland, the Cityringen tunnel in Copenhagen, Denmark and the Doha metro in Qatar. But in working on the A477 he has also literally followed in the footsteps of the great Thomas Telford, the man who founded the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1818. Telford, who was known as “the Colossus of Roads” for his work on the UK’s early modern road infrastructure, was the first to survey the route from St Clears to Pembroke Dock.
Two years ago the Institution of Civil Engineers awarded Dr Mohammad Fazal its coveted Chartership, a mark of professional excellence. Mohammad says, “I set a high standard for myself and it’s a great feeling to become a Chartered Engineer. I feel proud to have followed in my father’s footsteps. Now I have two lovely daughters, aged eight and four, and both of them like playing building bridges and houses using LEGO blocks. I wonder are they going to follow in my footsteps like I followed in my father’s?”
Ahead of the Institution of Civil Engineers’ 200th birthday in 2018, TheBusinessdesk.com meets some of the North West engineers behind Britain’s infrastructure. Next week: Liverpool2.
Mohammad Fazal and colleagues on site
A477 – image by Aled Llywelyn
Work goes on A477 – image by Aled Llywelyn
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