Engineering Disasters and Learning From Failure
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| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Graduate |
| Discipline(s): |
Design Engineering Ethics Materials Engineering |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Teaching - Case Study |
| Author(s): |
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| Description: | This site highlights some egregious enineering failures and emphasizes the importance of learning from mistakes and the role of engineering ethics in materials science. "The role of the engineer is to respond to a need by building or creating something along a certain set of guidelines (or specifications) which performs a given function. Just as importantly, that device, plan or creation should perform its function without fail. Everything, however, must eventually fail (in some way) to perform its given function with a sought after level of performance. Hence, the engineer must struggle to design in such a way as to avoid failure, and, more importantly, catastrophic failure which could result in loss of property, damage to the environment of the user of that technology, and possibly injury or loss of life. Through analysis and study of engineering disasters, modern engineering designers can learn what not to do and how to create designs with less of a chance of failure. . . Often, a deficiency in engineering ethics is found to be one of the root causes of an engineering failure. An engineer, as a professional, has a responsibility to their client or employer, to their profession, and to the general public, to perform their duties in as conscientious a manner as possible. Usually this entails far more than just acting within the bounds of law. An ethical engineer is one who avoids conflicts of interest, does not attempt to misrepresent their knowledge so as to accept jobs outside their area of expertise, acts in the best interests of society and the environment, fulfills the terms of their contracts or agreements in a thorough and professional manner, and promotes the education of young engineers within their field. Many of these issues are discussed in detail at the ethics homepage of the National Society of Professional Engineers. There you will find an example of an engineering Code of Ethics and links to additional information on engineering ethics. Or check here our list of some codes of Engineering Ethics. Failures in engineering ethics can have many legal consequences as well, as in the case of a mall collapse in Korea." |
| Rating: | No Rating |
| Related Resources | |
| Usage Tip | |
| Related ABET Criteria: |
(c) Design a system, component, or process (f) Understand professional and ethical responsibility |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | December 2005 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Download Size: |
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| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.matscieng.sunysb.edu/disaster/ |
| System Requirements: |
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| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
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