Engineering Disasters

This chapter starts off with an interlude of a man who discusses the fault of engineers. He list the tragedies engineer have caused through what he believes is poor workmanship and skills. The man lampoons engineers especially about the incident in the Kansas where a huge quantity of people were killed. He shows little to no sympathy for engineers despite the innovation they have introduced in the world. The author then turns this man disproval into an idiosyncratic idea by displaying the wonders and challenges an engineers a face. That while they do create fantastical inventions they are still human and therefore are bound to error. Throughout this chapter the author is on the defense. He surmises potential reasons for an engineer’s design

This accident exposed a large amount of lethal defects occurred on those engineers who were involved in this collapse of the bridge. According to Stage 1 Competencies and Elements of Competency(3. 1), a lack of professional accountability can be easily seen throughout above issues. Professional Engineers are needed to be responsible for the reliability of products they created and designed within a variety of severe environments. They are needed to test how the bridge would likely to work over and over under a variety of complex circumstances within the test stage of building the bridge.

Engineers hold a valuable place in our society. They lay the groundwork for and create artifacts based on the foundation of knowledge that science grants. In our culture, however, it is not uncommon for people to be confused about the role that engineers play. Often times, engineers are portrayed as being skilled and knowledgeable, but lack a sense of moral responsibility for their creations. This mentality is shown in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, in which, the inventor, Victor Frankenstein attempts to defy the natural laws of life and death without first considering the consequences. This phenomenon is not just present in works of fiction. The man who designed the atom bomb, J. Robert Oppenheimer, said to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission,

The St. Francis Dam was open for use in 1926, following two years of constructions. The dam was built in order to give the city of Los Angeles, and various other areas within the region a source of water. Though the dam itself had good intentions, faulty engineering design, and bad construction ultimately led to the untimely collapse of the dam on March 12th, 1928. After extensive research by various local, state, and federal investigators, it was determined that engineers didn’t take into account or didn’t care for safety measures of the dam. Since the St. Francis Dam was so profitable, many people including non-engineering personnel intentionally ignored the obvious early signs that the dam was going to collapse. No one wanted to lose out on the economic prosperity the dam was giving. The dam itself was for the most part proven to be inadequate even before the dam itself collapsed. The personal who worked on the construction and the maintenance of the dam saw negative signs early on such as cracks in the dam, and leaks. Still, despite these obvious warnings, the engineers and personals ignored these issue. The negligence of these workers and their failure to report or take seriously the warning signs lead to the collapse. This dam disaster was extremely catastrophic, and lead to the death of some 431 people. After the collapse of the dam, many new pages of regulations and engineering code were implemented in order to prevent another collapse of this dam again.

2.1 Analysis of cause ................................................................................................. 6 2.2 Impact on engineering practice .................................................. 9 2.3 recommendations ......................................................................11

The purpose of this report is to highlight significant engineer failures over history. Many of the disasters occurred in the latter half of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century. Starting with the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, three aerospace related accidents, Challenger, Apollo 13, and Mars Climate Orbiter. As well as the radiation machine, Therac-25, and the more recent Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Each of the topics will go in-depth on background information, how the incident occurred, way it could have been prevented, and future implications, or measures taken due to these accidents to avoid future disasters.

When an epidemic or catastrophe affects a community or nation depending on the resilience of the-the community there can be different outputs that help limit the aftermaths of the disaster.How the group of people respond or deal with the situation at hand will have a big impact on how it will affect their lives moving on. As humans the direr the situation we find ourselves in, the more likely we are to make a rush or unsound decision.These decisions shape how our lives may be impacted moving on whether for the duration of the catastrophe or many years to come.When the black death hit Europe in the late 1340’s to early 1350’s the Europeans did not know how to react or respond to it the because its victims nor physicians did not know the cause

“Mr. Ebeling never recovered from the disaster, ‘I’ve been under terrible stress since the accident,’ he told The Houston Chronicle in 1987. ‘I have headaches. I cry. I have bad dreams. I go into a hypnotic trance almost daily.’ He soon left Thiokol and the engineering profession. For the rest of his life he faulted himself for not doing enough to prevent the launch” (Grimes p.2). Robert Ebeling was one of the Morton Thiokol engineers who knew that the Challenger space shuttle would explode. The Challenger disaster occurred in 1986, and in the early 1980s, earlier versions of the shuttle had been launched. There were signs of problems with the O-rings, but they were never resolved, resulting in a catastrophe. Engineers from Morton Thiokol,

With the constant discovery of scientific principles and new engineering designs, the responsibility often lies in the hands of engineers to decide what is in the best interest of the public. Millions of people around the world use products and structures developed by engineers, every day. Before accepting work from a client, it is important that engineers have a good understanding of their own personal limitations. If work is accepted that they are “not competent to perform by virtue of [their] training and experience” , there is a clear disregard for public welfare and potential for a serious safety hazard. It is again evident that the

“We are witnesses to great benefits to mankind stemming from contemporary engineering development”, according to the Bulletin of Engineers. They further cite that nuclear and space age that we live in, encourage the vigorous progress of science. And human technologies are developing very fast. Mechanization, automation and computerization of production processes have lessened the hazards to human physical integrity, but in spite of that state the Engineers, man 's psychic and moral integrity in his working environment has been increasingly endangered. Modern technology has a deep impact on humankind and all life on Earth. The decisions and actions of

Engineers need to make sure that skills and attitudes listed above are part of their work. For example, according to the report, costly researches on bridge condition are undertaken whenever necessary but sometimes their result are overlooked and never given their due consideration. Unfortunately, the report failed to show clearly attitudes engineers need to develop in order to make their work successful and avoid failures.

As well all understand an earthquake are when tectonic plates move against each other which causes an enormous disturbance. These natural disasters are absolutely catastrophic they cause more than 10,000 deaths a year,

The great liability of the engineer compared to men of other professions is that his works are out in the open where all can see them. His acts, step by step, are in hard substance. He cannot bury his mistakes in the grave like the doctors. He cannot argue them into thin air or blame the judge like the lawyers….He cannot, like the politician, screen his shortcomings by blaming his opponents and hope that the people will forget. The engineer simply cannot deny that he did it. If his works do not work, he is damned forever.

People who are able to use their experience and knowledge by designing or performing skills to find a solution are considered to be engineers, and in most cases, they usually invent creations to make daily life easier. In particularly, inventions are not always used for their purpose. Thus, it illustrates whether or not engineers are morally concerned with society, especially if something dangerous were to be misused and intentionally harm others. At that point, the engineers should be held accountable for their creation. Considering that possibility, engineers could have prevented such accidents from occurring if they were taught moral ethics. Moral ethics and moral theory are philosophies that help establish society’s way of deeming what is ideal and acceptable from something atrocious and wrong. Through learning moral ethics, student of the engineering program would be able to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong.

To the ASME, improving the general welfare of society through the utilization of the specialized skills of engineers is highly stressed. One must consider the possible consequences of actions and decide the best course of action to benefit the safety and health of the public. The ASME