Student-centred Immersive Learning of Design and Dimensioning in Structural Concrete using Augmented Reality Environments

Structural engineering lectures are a core part of undergraduate civil engineering curricula. Their content demands advanced analytical thinking and spatial abstraction skills in order to idealise real-world structures using appropriate surrogate models and applicable design schemes. Most civil engineering students lack professional experience and therefore typically struggle with this abstraction during lectures and tutorials. This is particularly challenging in structural concrete, owing to the complex nonlinear behaviour of the composite material.

In this Innovedum project, we addressed these challenges by blending interactive digital content with the real world to create immersive experiences that support and improve the teaching of structural engineering courses. To this end, we developed a software workflow together with interactive demonstrator applications that bring Augmented Reality (AR) into «Structural Concrete I/II» in the D-BAUG civil engineering bachelor’s programme. Each of the four AR applications showcases a specific example structure already present in the course material, thereby avoiding any further expansion of the lectures› extensive scope. For each example, the 3D geometry is displayed and can be explored: students follow a curated story through the relevant material, allowing them both to focus on that story and to explore the content on their own.

The AR applications foster two subject-specific competencies from the ETH Competence Framework.

Concepts and Theories. By rendering each example as an explorable 3D geometry, the applications make the consequences of modelling and idealisation decisions directly visible — relationships that remain hidden in conventional 2D plans. Students connect the abstract surrogate models from the lectures to the spatial reality of the structure and avoid the misinterpretations that often arise when a task is first read from 2D drawings alone. A human figure included for scale further lets students grasp the true dimensions of the structure they are designing, building a realistic sense of the magnitudes involved in their computations rather than treating them as abstract numbers.

Techniques and Technologies. For every example, the computed reinforcement is displayed in 3D space. Students see immediately what their design calculations mean for a realistic structure, strengthening the link between analytical design techniques and their physical realisation in detailing.

Current goals of the courses Structural Concrete I/II are: students (i) know the behaviour of concrete, reinforcement and their interaction; (ii) understand the response of typical structural members including linear members and slabs; (iii) are able to select appropriate models and apply them to practical problems; (iv) understand the principle and the techniques of prestressing; and (v) master the dimensioning and detailing of typical structures. Based on these objectives of the courses and the corresponding competencies, our alumni are well prepared for the present needs regarding structural concrete design, as confirmed by regular feedback from engineering practice, and there is no need to fundamentally adjust the goals. However, the feedbacks identify the ability to appropriately model real structures (goal iii) as a weak point. Furthermore, a central question remains: are our students equally well prepared to keep up with future challenges in research and industry towards using and understanding digital tools such as the foreseeable increase computer-aided nonlinear analysis and design together with immersive visualisation and interaction techniques?
With the proposed project, we want to tackle these issues, with the following specific objectives:
(i) foster the students’ engagement and enthusiasm for the lecture through AR immersion;
(ii) promote a deeper understanding of the students by clarifying and tightening the link between abstract theoretical models and real-life concrete structures in an immersive way, in order to prepare them for present and future challenges in research and industry;
(iii) develop and implement workflows for creating new, digital, interactive and immersive AR content displayed via tablets, complementing existing lecture notes and slides, colloquia/tutorials and instructions in teaching structural concrete;
(iv) test and evaluate technological feasibility and pedagogical benefit (understanding of the lecture content, abstraction abilities for design and analysis) of these AR workflows and applications with students to support interactive, personalised, and self-motivated learning;
(v) augment our existing online-platform for collection and presentation of the material to students and setting a basis for a future MOOC
(vi)contribute to modernising and digitizing teaching in civil engineering at ETH Zurich
A summary of the intended AR apps in relation to the existing curriculum is given in appendices A and C until I.

This projects’ core innovative aspect is the immersive learning experience at intellectually demanding abstraction, analysis and design tasks by means of AR apps to support students’ (spatial) comprehension.

For students:
– support understanding of modelling abstractions through immersion, spatial visualisation and interaction, especially for students with little professional experience.
– increase curiosity and self-motivation towards exploring theoretical bases and modelling assumptions compared to real-life structures, which allows to handle more complex problems where “thinking-outside-the-box” instead of “following recipes” is required. Added value is expected in deeper understanding, improved exam results and the performance of alumni in industry.
– literacy of XR and its methods for use in future education and industrial practice.
– improve interaction with lecturers, increase active participation and stretch the span of cognitive attention.

For lecturers:
– better insight in students’ content comprehension via formative assessments within the AR apps
– improved student interaction within lectures through more interaction-suitable content and triggered question within the AR apps.
– literacy of XR and its methods for content creation and teaching conduction (e.g. via peer-teaching).

For degree program as a whole:
– sound understanding of the mechanical behaviour of structural concrete benefits many other structural engineering courses employing similar physical principles.
– literacy of XR and its methods for content creation and teaching conduction across D-BAUG and beyond
– attracting more top qualified students towards studying at ETH from non-German speaking countries via consequent provision of modern, interactive and bilingual course material.

Rather than adding new content to an already extensive curriculum, we integrated the AR applications directly into the existing structure of «Structural Concrete I/II.» Each of the four applications is built around an example structure that already appears in the course’s lecture, tutorial, or homework material, and each app is tied to that specific item. This deliberate reuse means the applications deepen engagement with material the students already encounter, rather than expanding the scope or workload of the course.

The applications are introduced briefly within the accompanying lecture, tutorial, or homework in which the corresponding example is treated. This ensures students are aware of the relevant app at the moment it is most useful and can consult it directly while working through the example. Within each app, the 3D geometry can be explored along a curated story that guides students through the aspects relevant to that example, while still allowing free, self-directed exploration.

To keep the barrier to use as low as possible, all applications are hosted on our teaching website and run on any device — smartphone, tablet, or laptop — without installation. Students can open an app in the lecture hall, during a tutorial, or at home, using whatever device they have to hand.

The core project goals were achieved: we established a reusable workflow for creating AR applications and implemented a set of worked examples within «Structural Concrete I/II.» The main deviation from the original plan concerned the number of examples — fewer were realised than initially envisaged. Because the workflow we developed keeps the creation process simple, however, further applications can be added with comparatively little effort, so the smaller initial set does not limit the project’s longer-term value.

The clearest unexpected benefit lies precisely here: the workflow itself, rather than any single application, emerged as the project’s most transferable outcome. The same process can be applied well beyond our specific course material to any example that benefits from spatial, three-dimensional representation.

Student learning was assessed through surveys completed after students had worked with the applications. Students reported that the 3D representation helped them engage with the examples and form a clear mental image of the structure under investigation — directly addressing the spatial-abstraction difficulties the project set out to tackle. This evidence is self-reported and qualitative; a more formal comparison of learning outcomes would be a natural next step.

Two features support transfer to other contexts and larger groups: the applications are web-hosted and run on any device without installation, so scaling to a full cohort adds no overhead; and the lightweight authoring workflow makes it realistic for other courses — within structural engineering and beyond — to create their own AR examples wherever a 3D view aids understanding.