The School of Civil and Environmental Engineering has a robust Capstone Design Program, through which student teams work directly with client sponsors on real-world problems. Capstone Design is the final course in a spine of four classes that anchor the undergraduate experience. 

Each semester, sponsors are sought for projects in any civil or environmental topic area. Projects can include those currently being designed, recently completed, and/or in the planning phase. We seek projects that would involve around 400 hours of student-level engineering effort, such that for a team of four students, each student will spend about 100 hours over the semester. The projects should include a design component (e.g., calculations, codes, drawings, etc.), rather than solely consisting of a paper study or lab work. The School supports travel costs for the student team to complete a site visit, and in recent years, teams have traveled across Georgia, as well as to Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi and California.

Recent Topics

Recent topics and related designs include:

• Civil – Safety improvements to dams and an energy recovery system based on turbine installation in water pipes at a treatment plant
• Civil –  Assessment of coastal flooding impacts to a culvert and to beach pathways impacted by hurricanes
• Environmental – Treatment systems such as PFAS removal from a drinking water supply in a small Georgia town; metals removal from an industrial battery site groundwater; and chlorinated organics removal from a Superfund site vadose zone using soil vapor extraction
• Environmental – Design of a food growth module for Mars as well as for a lunar habitat
• Structural – Structural design of a modular pedestrian bridge system that can be assembled for use and disassembled for storage at a Florida F1 racetrack
• Structural – Design of steel and concrete buildings such as an athletic training center, a performing arts center with long-span truss members, as well as the structural assessment of a covered wooden bridge used to inform the design of a new footbridge at a local park
• Transportation – Roundabouts to improve traffic flow at multiple intersections
• Transportation – Safety improvements to an intersection where school-age children were crossing a busy road to access a nearby after-school program

Partner With Us

We are always seeking sponsors for projects, as we need to recruit around 25 to 30 projects each spring and 15 to 20 each fall, to provide unique opportunities to each team. “Sponsoring” a project involves providing a description of the project, supplying technical information to the students, allowing a site visit (if appropriate), and having a P.E. available to meet virtually with students for around 30 minutes per week for 3 months to provide mentorship and guidance. No financial payments are needed to participate as a sponsor. Our sponsors have included public utilities, agencies such as EPD and EPA, consulting firms, local governments, communities, and other organizations. The students take the class for credit, and student costs for site visits are covered by Georgia Tech.  We hope the sponsors gain from the process as well, with the delivery of a student design report (reflecting 400 hours of student effort), the community aspects of mentoring the next generation of engineers, and the potential to identify future employees.

Four professors are currently involved in guiding the teams, with each capstone professor holding a professional engineer’s license and decades of practical experience. If you think you might have a project, please reach out to our coordinating professors:

• Structural – Dr. Fred Meyer, PE, F.ASCE – fred.meyer@ce.gatech.edu
• Civil/Transportation/Environmental – Professor of the Practice Sharon Just, PE, F.ASCE – sharon.just@gatech.edu

Thank you for supporting our program and students!