Chapter 5.4, Problem 18P

Engineering: Cracks Henry Petroski is a professor of civil engineering at Duke University. In his book To Engineer Is Human: The Role of Failure in Successful Design, Professor Petroski says that up to 95% of all structural failures, including those of bridges, airplanes, and other commonplace products of technology, are believed to be the result of crack growth. In most cases, the cracks grow slowly. It is only when the cracks reach intolerable proportions and still go undetected that catastrophe can occur. In a cement retaining wall, occasional hairline cracks are normal and nothing to worry about. If these cracks are spread out and not too close together, the wall is considered safe. However, if a number of cracks group together in a small region, there may be real trouble. Suppose a given cement retaining wall is considered safe if hairline cracks are evenly spread out and occur on the average of 4.2 cracks per 30-foot section of wall.

1. (a) Explain why a Poisson probability distribution would be a good choice for the random variable r = number of hairline cracks for a given length of retaining wall.
2. (b) In a 50-foot section of safe wall, what is the probability of three (evenly spread-out) hairline cracks? What is the probability of three or more (evenly spread-out) hairline cracks?
3. (c) Answer part (b) for a 20-foot section of wall.
4. (d) Answer part (b) for a 2-foot section of wall. Round λ to the nearest tenth.
5. (e) Consider your answers to parts (b), (c), and (d). If you had three hairline cracks evenly spread out over a 50-foot section of wall, should this be cause for concern? The probability is low. Could this mean that you are lucky to have so few cracks? On a 20-foot section of wall [part (c)], the probability of three cracks is higher. Does this mean that this distribution of cracks is closer to what we should expect? For part (d), the probability is very small. Could this mean you are not so lucky and have something to worry about? Explain your answers.