1. Orientations and Objectives

    In 1937, Civil Engineering Department of Xiamen University was found by the President Sa Bendong and served as the first department head. During the earlier student enrollments between 1938~1953, it has successfully cultivated many outstanding representatives in the field of civil engineering, for example, Professor Zeng Guoxi graduated in 1943 who is the Chinese famous geotechnical expert, Professor Lin Youkun graduated in 1946 who is a well-known scholar in the field of stochastic structural dynamics and NAE member of US, Mr. Wu Zidi graduated in 1947 who is a famous master of engineering design, and Professor Liu Hongwen graduated in 1948, and so on. In 1953, due to the nationwide recombination of colleges and departments, Department of Civil Engineering at the Xiamen University was moved to Zhejiang University, Hohai University, and other universities. In 1999, the application of resuming student enrollment of civil engineering discipline in the Xiamen University is approved by the Ministry of Education. The master degree authorization unit of "Structural Engineering" was granted in 2003. The department of Civil Engineering was formally re-established in 2004. After the Department of Civil engineering being officially rehabilitated at the Xiamen University in 2004, it has experienced a period of rapid development. In 2005, the master program of civil engineering and the professional master program of architectural & civil Engineering are approved; in 2012, civil engineering discipline won the title of "Key Discipline of Fujian Province"; in 2013, the Experiment & Teaching Center of Civil Engineering won the title of "Demonstration Center of Experiment & Teaching of Fujian Province in the 12th Five-Year Plan"; in 2014, department of civil engineering passed the national professional assessment for civil engineering, and set up a sub-discipline Ph.D. program of monitoring and protection of architectures and environments.

The orientation and objective of Civil Engineering Discipline in the Xiamen University is: Based on idea of training talents equipped with broad professional view, fundamental knowledge, high quality and creativity, as well as special capability in engineering and management, to comprehensively enhance the overall ability of civil engineering discipline, and to develop a high-level research-oriented discipline with distinctive characteristics and impact in the southeast areas.

2. Superiorities and Features

The faculty members in Civil Engineering Discipline of Xiamen University have served as member of the Advanced Materials and Structures Committee in American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), China Section member of the International Association for Structural Control and Monitoring (IASCM), member of Tall Building Seismic Prevention Committee of the Seismic Disaster Prevention Branch of China Construction Institute, member of drafting the Standard of Earthquake Resistant Evaluation of Constructional Structures, council member of Building Materials Research Association of Chinese Colleges and Universities, committee member of Experts in the Xiamen Construction System, and so on. Moreover, civil engineering discipline of Xiamen University is the Key Discipline of Fujian Province, Civil Engineering Experiment & Teaching Demonstration Center is the Provincial-level Experimental Center in the 12th Five-Year Plan of Fujian Province, and all these provide solid support for the development of Civil Engineering Discipline. Recently, the civil engineering discipline has developed and form several distinctive and preponderant research directions, including structural monitoring, numerical simulation, geotechnical engineering, and so on.

3. Cultivation Goals

Aiming to establish a "worldwide famous high-level research university", orienting to build a high-level civil engineering discipline, cultivate talents to equipped with broad professional view, fundamental knowledge, high quality and creativity, as well as special capability in engineering and management, and actively severs for national and local economic construction and social development. Students graduated from civil engineering discipline mainly work in the civil-related industries, such as design, research, construction and management.

4. Discipline Directions

(1) Intelligent health monitoring for civil engineering

Prof. Lei Ying and Prof. Zhang Jianlin are leaders of this discipline direction. The researches mainly focus on structural damage detection, structural health monitoring, wireless sensor technologies, and structural safety evaluation, and so on.

(2) Computer simulations of statics and dynamics of structures

Prof. Wang Dongdong, Prof. Gu Quan, and Prof. Li Shaoquan are leaders of this discipline direction. The researches mainly focus on high-performance numerical methods for structural statics and dynamics (efficient mesh-less methods and isogeometric analysis methods) and program development and engineering application of OPENSEES, and so on.

(3) Geotechnical engineering

Prof. Li Sulin and Prof. Hu Hua are leaders of this discipline direction. The researches mainly focus on acoustic emission monitoring of underground structures, mechanism analysis of deformation and failure of soft and weak rock, slope stability analysis, and so on.

(4) Construction management in civil engineering

Prof. Shi Jianguang, Prof. Hu Hongmei, and Asso. Prof. Zhou Hong are leaders of this discipline direction. The researches mainly focus on construction laws and standards, engineering economics, BIM technology and its application in civil engineering, and so on.

5. Discipline Impact

The achievements in the fields of intelligent health monitoring of civil engineering and computer simulations of structural statics and dynamics have been widely acknowledged by academic colleagues. Relevant teachers worked as the China Section member of the International Association for Structural Control and Monitoring (IASCM), guest editor of international journals of Soil dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, and Advances in Structural Engineering, etc, being rewarded the Young Investigator Award of the Asian-Pacific Association for Computational Mechanics (APACM), the Young Investigator Award of the International Chinese Association for Computational Mechanics (ICACM), the Qian Lingxi Young Investigator Award for Computational Mechanics, the Fellow Award of ICACM, and sponsored by the National Natural Science Fund for Excellent Young Scholars and the Natural Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of Fujian Province. Postgraduate graduates are able to undertake important jobs in the construction or management industries, and their solid fundamental knowledge and strong capabilities to solve practical problems have won the well recognitions of various employers.