Engineering Disasters - Essay Example

Engineering disasters that have occurred since 1800 Introduction “Disasters happen all the time. Some are small while others affect everyone. Below are just a few disasters that had an affect on society.” An Engineer has to play a vital role in creating or building the new technology which are useful to make human life more comfortable. He fulfils various modern needs of the people. So the major role of the Engineer is to respond to certain requirements of the people and thus create something in prescribed guidelines. The job of the Engineer requires full concentration and devotion while performing the task. “A small hole in the wrong place creates a disaster.” Thus even a small mistake can invite a great risk and any risk can lead to major catastrophe such as loss of property, environmental damages, and most important serious injury or loss of human life. That is why the failure of the Engineers is called the Engineering Disasters. The Engineering disasters can be divided into different categories such as civil engineering disasters, Mechanical Engineering disasters, Nuclear Disasters, Environmental disasters, space disasters, etc. The primary causes of engineering disasters are usually considered to be Human factors: including both ethical failure and accidents), design flaws (many of which are also the result of unethical practices) materials failures extreme conditions or environments, and, most commonly and importantly combinations of these reasons According to the recent research conducted by Swiss federal Institute of technology in Zurich, it was proved the 800 cases of structural failure in which 504 people were killed, 592 people injured, and millions of dollars of damage incurred due to the Engineering disasters. When the faults are from the Engineers’ side, they are classified by the researchers in the following manner Insufficient knowledge ............................... 36% Underestimation of influence ......................... 16% Ignorance, carelessness, negligence .................. 14% Forgetfulness, error ................................. 13% Relying upon others without sufficient control ....... 9% Objectively unknown situation ........................ 7% Imprecise definition of responsibilities ............. 1% Choice of bad quality................................ 1% Other ................................................ 3% (M. Matousek and Schneider, J., (1976) Untersuchungen Zur Struktur des Zicherheitproblems bei Bauwerken, Institut für Baustatik und Konstruktion der ETH Zürich, Bericht No. 59, ETH.) So the Engineers have no option but handle each and every task carefully. Here the paper specially focuses on many disasters that have occurred since 1800. This article is the analysis and the study of different Engineering disasters and the causes responsible for these disasters. Let’s have a look at some of the Engineering disasters from 1800 to till now. The Tragedy of Arctic Steamship: In 1854 a catastrophe occurred due to the failure of Engineers in building the steamship named Arctic where approximately 300 people had to loss their lives. The great appalling thing in this disaster was that not a single woman or child could survive. This steam ship was built in New York City and it was launched in 1850. This giant ship was 284 feet long, one of the largest ships in those days. Its steam engines powered large paddle wheels on either side of its hull. It was well equipped with spacious dining rooms, saloons, and staterooms, the luxurious accommodations never before seen on a steamship had been provided to the people. On September 13, 1854 Arctic reached in Liverpool after a trip from New York City. On its return trip to New York the Arctic would be carrying some important passengers, including relatives of its owners, members of both the Brown and Collins families. Also along on the voyage was Willie Luce, the sickly 11-year-old son of the ship’s captain, James Luce. This catastrophe happened on 25th September 1954. The cause behind the disaster: The major cause behind the tragedy of the steamboat was the damage in its hull. This damage in wooden hull was really serious and incurable. Because of this damage the seawater entered in the ship and the ship started getting sunk. It was a mechanical fault which became responsible for the tragedy of Arctic Steamship. Tragedy in East Ohio One more dreadful Engineering disaster happened in October 20, 1944. A liquid natural gas tank at the East Ohio Company, which contained 90 million cubic feet gas spread as an invisible vapor cloud into the street and sewer system. The cloud burst into flames and the resulting explosion and fire killed 128 people. 700 people were left homeless. 79 homes, two factories, and 217 cars were destroyed. Causes: Several causes were there behind the spread of the fire. Either the negligence of the Engineers, or lack of sufficient knowledge might be the major reasons behind the episode of this debacle. No expert or Engineer can realize that there was a leakage in the tank. The cause of the blast had to do with the contraction of the metal tanks: The gas was stored at temperatures below negative 250 degrees and the resulting contraction of the metal had caused a steel plate to rupture. Thus the reason for the disaster was extreme conditions or environments. Human factors of course were involved behind this tragedy. Fall of the Bridge on the river Tay: The first bridge on the river Tay in Scotland was started in May 1879. This bridge was designed by the then famous Engineer Thomas Bouch. When actually Bouch started to build the bridge at that time very few bridges were there around the world built on the rivers. There was no special guideline or design ready for Bouch at that time so he tried his own design which was not proven perfect and accepted but he made the design with the help of his previous experiences. In the past he had designed bridges in the North East of England. Those bridges had been constructed of latticework of girders supported on cast iron columns. These lattices were braced with iron struts. He followed his tried and tested designs when he was designing the Tay Bridge. The tragedy of the collapse of this bridge occurred on 28th December 1879. There was a rampant howling storm raging about the Firth of Tay. Terrible winds were blowing with the speed of approximately 65mph or 100kph. In the night, approximately at 9.15 a passenger train started crossing the bridge. There were 6 carriages and the engine in the train. The train was loaded with approximately 75 passengers. When it crossed the central navigation spans, the spans collapsed. In this dreadful incident unfortunately not a single survivor found and only 60 bodies were found. Causes: The inquiry was conducted and the basic reason behind this disaster was found and that was again the Engineering fault. The fall happened due to the insufficiency of cross bracing and its fastenings to sustain the force of the gale. The official reports also revealed the fact that had the supporting iron columns and the bracing holding the iron girders been constructed and maintained properly and with a standard quality, the tragedy would not have happened. Fall of Ashtabula River Bridge: The deadliest disaster due to the collapse of the bridge occurred in December 29, 1876. The railroad bridge over the Ashtabula River in northeastern Ohio was collapsed. This horrible cataclysm took away the lives of 92 people. While crossing the rail bridge the passengers from the train heard a horrifying cracking sound and within few seconds the bridge collapsed totally and the train fell down 70 feet in the frozen stream. The accident was blamed on possible fatigue of cast iron elements in the bridges wrought iron truss. The bridges two designers later committed suicide. The fall of this bridge was an example of poor quality work of the contemporary engineers. The catastrophe of St. Francis Dam: The greatest civil engineering failure in American History was the catastrophe of St. Francis Dam which was built by the Bureau of Water Works and supply of the city of Los Angles. About 38,000 acres- feet water was put in store behind the dam. The dam was constructed on the giant and ancient landslide On March 12, 1928 the dreadful incident happened. The dam’s 180 feet high concrete wall crumpled and collapsed and it allowed billions of gallons of raging flood waters down to San Francisquito Canyon. It was about five miles northwest of Magic Mountains in Santa Clarita this is the greatest failure of American civil Engineers. The Causes: The reason behind this catastrophe was that the attempt was done to increase the capacity of the dam by increasing the height of the dam by 10 feet and later more 10 feet. This height was increased but at the same time it was not taken into consideration that the dam’s base width is also required to be increased. Total 11% height was increased without increasing the width. This mistake was very serious and it led to this greatest catastrophe which killed at least 450 people. The Tragedy of Titanic: The sinking of Titanic Boat was also the greatest Engineering disaster. The boat which had a reputation of unsinkable boat was sunk in April 15, 1912 at 2 a.m. The ship was actually built by using the modern and latest technology and it was equipped with all types of facilities. Apparently the tragedy took place as the boat hit the huge iceberg but the reason again was due to the failure in construction of the boat and the major mistakes committed by the Engineers. The major reason was the use of the steel. The steel which is used to build the ship contained huge amount of phosphorous, oxygen, and sulfur. Due to their existence the steel became very brittle when it sailed through the cold Atlantic Ocean. In fact the steel which was used to build the giant Titanic boat was the considered to be the best steel however it is not accepted to use this steel in making the boat. Besides the use of the steel another cause was the carelessness of the captain. The captain increased the speed of the ship. He failed to realize that there was the danger of iceberg and he couldn’t realize it in advance. Environmental Disaster: Among the environmental disasters one of the dreadful disasters took place in Bhopal, India, in December 3, 1984.In the midnight the poisonous gas cloud released from the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL). It was a pesticide factory. The cloud released from the factory contained 15 metric tones of methyl isocyanate (MIC) which covered the area of around 30 square miles. This terrible gas leak killed approximately 5000 people residing nearby the factory. At least 50,000 people had a severe health problem and among them approximately more than 15,000 victims killed due to the health problem caused by this dreadful disaster. The researcher found the cause behind this disaster after the happening of this accident. Apparently water ended up in MIC storage tanks, causing an exothermal reaction that released an amount of poisonous gas large enough to open the safety valves. Normally scrubbers intercept the escaping gas, but in the case of Bhopal tragedy these scrubbers were out of order and they were defective and were not repaired. It was also found that factory personnel totally neglected a number of safety measures. There were no valves to prevent water from entering the storage tanks. The cooling installation of the tanks and the flaring installation that might have flared the gas that was released were out of order Safety was very low in this factory of Union Carbide, compared to its other locations. The safety measures were not taken rather they were totally neglected by the factory just because of the cost cutting. See the figure below: overview of events that led to the Bhopal disaster (Bhopal Medical Appeal, 2002) Engineering disasters are always the consequences of bad management and not bad Engineering. Sometimes the human being does such things which might be beneficial for him or it is for his own convenience but at the same time it can be harmful to the society. But for personal gain sometimes some self-seeking deeds are committed by him which causes the disasters. Twenty years back such tragedy took place and the entire Europe was greatly affected by this disaster. This disaster was known as Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSC). BSC was a dangerous disease found in cows. Sometime this disease is called ‘mad cow disease.’ This was of course the disaster which is known as environmental Engineering disaster. In this the infected cows act strangely and collapse on spot and die. The human being was whole and soul responsible for this dreadful disease. It occurred because the cows were fed with meat and bone meal. This practice would be done because the main ingredient in cow feeding that is soybean was scarce and it was very difficult to get the soybean. It was first discovered in Britain in 1986. The mistake committed by the British people came into focus and the cow meat exported from Britain was banned in the rest of the European nations. Thus because of the small mistake the entire continent had to suffer a heavy loss and especially Britain. In short we can conclude that the reasons behind the Engineering disasters are mostly related to the human errors. Proper knowledge of the concerned field, proper management, planning, carefulness, and selflessness these are the qualities which needs to be developed in the Engineers. The Engineers should be aware of the management training also especially the focus should be given on the disaster management. It is very necessary for the engineers to learn something from the past disasters and take full care to avoid any type of such catastrophe that will take away the life of many innocent people for no reason. Source List: 1. Engineering Disasters by Jennifer L. Harvey, http://antoine.frostburg.edu/phys/invention/case_studies/disasters_index.html 2. The Tay Bridge Disaster, December 1879, BBC Home, website: www.bbc.co.uk) 3. Engineering Disasters and Learning from Failure. Website: http://www.matscieng.sunysb.edu/disaster/ 4. Environmental Disasters Page updated Sept 2006 Created by S.M. Enzler MSc Top 10 of anthropogenic and natural environmental disasters, Website: http://www.lenntech.com/environmental-disasters.htm 5. Listverse, ultimate top 10 lists, Top 10 Engineering Disasters, Published December 4, 2007, website: http://listverse.com/2007/12/04/top-10-worst-engineering-disasters/ Read More