Guidelines for Forensic Engineering Practice

Within the broad field of civil engineering, the practice of forensic engineering involves the investigation of performance, difficulties, or failures of buildings, structures, pipelines, foundations, airplanes, manufacturing equipment, vehicles, bridges, flood control facilities, and other engineered products. "Guideline for Forensic Engineering Practice" is organized into five general topics of forensic engineering: Qualifications addresses commonly accepted education and experience requirements for forensic engineers, various aspects of Federal and State law are cited with an expanded section on admissibility and disqualifications are discussed in this chapter; Investigations intended to show the typical aspects of physically carrying out a forensic investigation, such as the handling of evidence for subsequent courtroom presentation. The topics also include: Ethics the promulgation of guidelines for ethical behavior of the forensic engineer is a primary objective of ASCE and the Forensic Practice Committee, as well as the ASCE Code of Ethics and codes from other engineering associations are applied to the forensic engineer; Legal gives a brief overview of the court system as it applies to the construction industry, including the role of the forensic engineer as an expert witness is defined; and Business intended to relate the non-technical management side of forensic engineering practices and the marketing of forensic engineering services within an acceptable ethical scheme is encouraged.