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Civil Engineering Vocab

Subject : engineering
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. Material used to provide a bedding or foundation for pipes or other underground structures. This material is of specified quality for desirable bedding or other characteristics and is often imported from a different location.






2. Water that does not contain objectionable pollution - contamination - minerals - or infective agents and is considered satisfactory for drinking.






3. An opening in pipes or sewers designed for rodding or working a snake into the pipe in either direction. Twoway cleanouts are most often found in building lateral pipes at or near a property line.






4. An authorization issued by a government agency allowing construction of a project according to approved plans and specifications.






5. A line from which heights and depths are calculated or measured. Also called a datum plane or a datum level.






6. The pipes - conduits - structures - equipment - and processes required to collect - convey - and treat domestic and industrial wastes - and dispose of the effluent and sludge.






7. A professional who designs - plans - and manages outdoor spaces ranging from entire ecosystems to residential sites and whose media include natural and built elements; also referred to as a designer - planner - consultant. Not to be confused with lan






8. A layer - usually of concrete or mortar - for providing continuous support to such items as bricks - slabs - pipes.






9. A collection pipe to which building laterals are connected.






10. Pertaining to groundwater - a well - or underground basin where the water is under a pressure greater than atmospheric and will rise above the level of its upper confining surface if given an opportunity to do so.






11. A sewer that receives wastewater from many tributary branches or sewers and serves a large territory and contributing population.






12. A pipe or conduit (sewer) intended to carry wastewater or waterborne wastes from homes - businesses - and industries to the POTW (Publicly Owned Treatment Works). Storm water runoff or unpolluted water should be collected and transported in a separat






13. A road laid through a garden or park-like landscape - usually with median and roadside plantings.






14. A strip of unspoiled - often treed - agricultural or other outlying land used to separate or ring urban areas.






15. Narrowly defined - an extended view or prospect from a site which - many times - is as important as or more important than the site itself.






16. Masonry composed of irregularly shaped stones laid without regularity of coursing - but well bonded.






17. A system of gutters - catch basins - yard drains - culverts and pipes for the purpose of conducting storm waters from an area - but intended to exclude domestic and industrial wastes.






18. Solid material settled from suspension in a liquid.






19. A sewer designed to carry both sanitary wastewaters and storm or surface water runoff.






20. Installation of pumps to lift wastewater to a higher elevation in places where flat land would require excessively deep sewer trenches. Also used to raise wastewater from areas too low to drain into available collection lines. These stations may be e






21. Narrowly defined - the amount of countryside and/or city that can be taken in at a glance. Also - an area of land or water taken in the aggregate.






22. Sewers are surcharged when the supply of water to be carried is greater than the capacity of the pipes to carry the flow. The surface of the wastewater in manholes rises above the top of the sewer pipe - and the sewer is under pressure or a head - ra






23. A 19th- and 20th-century planned community traditionally featuring careful mixes of housing - open space - commercial activity and recreation. Examples include Reston - Va. - and Columbia - Md. - in the United States - and Harlow and Stevenage in Gre






24. A branch of biology dealing with the relationship between living things and their environment.






25. The dropping or lowering of the ground surface as a result of removing excess water (overdraft or overpumping) from an aquifer. After excess water has been removed - the soil will settle - become compacted and the ground surface will drop and can cau






26. A railing composed of balusters capped by a handrail.






27. A sewer that discharges into a branch or other sewer and has no other common sewer tributary to it. Sometimes called a 'street sewer' because it collects wastewater from individual homes.






28. The precipitation that cannot be absorbed by the soil and flows across the surface by gravity. The water that reaches a stream by traveling over the soil surface or falls directly into the stream channels - including not only the large permanent stre






29. A groundwater table that is changed by artificial means. Examples of activities that artificially raise the level of a groundwater table include agricultural irrigation - dams and excessive sewer line exfiltration. A groundwater table can be artifici






30. A water treatment process in which solid particles settle out of the water being treated in a large clarifier or sedimentation basin.






31. A professional society that represents landscape architects in the United States and Canada and seeks to better the practice and understanding of landscape architecture through education - research - state registration and other programs.






32. Any designated use or activity on a piece of land.






33. The gathering of a gas - liquid - or dissolved substance on the surface or interface zone of another material. Advanced Waste Treatment (water) n Any process of water renovation that upgrades treated wastewater to meet specific reuse requirements. Ma






34. A wall that supports any vertical load in addition to its own weight.






35. Federal agency responsible for producing and managing many federally-funded public service programs - especially those affecting housing and public spaces.






36. The used household water and watercarried solids that flow in sewers to a wastewater treatment plant. The preferred term is WASTEWATER.






37. Subsurface water in the saturation zone from which wells and springs are fed. In a strict sense the term applies only to water below the water table. Also called 'phreatic water' and 'plerotic water.'






38. A sewer designed to carry both sanitary wastewaters and storm or surface water runoff.






39. The lay of the land - particularly its slope and drainage patterns; the science of drawing maps and charts or otherwise representing the surface features of a region or site - including its natural and man-made features.






40. A downspout or pipe installed to drain a roof gutter to a storm drain or other means of disposal.






41. An agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture - primarily responsible for planning and overseeing the use of national forest lands by private - commercial and government users.






42. The force that resists the separation of two bodies in contact.






43. Tamping or rolling of a material to achieve a surface or density that is able to support predicted loads.






44. In landscape architecture - a study of the potential cost of site purchase - demolition and improvement in comparison to the income or other benefit to be derived from site development.






45. Precipitation which has been rendered (made) acidic by airborne pollutants.






46. A system of major sewers serving as transporting lines and not as local or lateral sewers.






47. A manhole located at the upstream end of a sewer and having no inlet pipe. Also called a TERMINAL MANHOLE.






48. A wastewater pumping station that lifts the wastewater to a higher elevation when continuing the sewer at reasonable slopes would involve excessive depths of trench. Also - an installation of pumps that raise wastewater from areas too low to drain in






49. Landscape architecture - (civil) engineering - urban planning and architecture. Agronomy is also often included in this group.






50. The pipeline extending from the water main to the building served or to the consumer's system.