Engneering Disasters - Assignment Example

Engineering is a discipline that applies both scientific and technological principles to help meet various needs of the people. The demands to engineering may include transportation infrastructure, buildings and constructions, aircrafts and computers hardware and software production (Liao & Okazaki, 2009). Nevertheless, the demands on engineering requires that the needs of the people are met both efficiently and cost effectively, meaning that the cost reduction principle is very important for any engineering project.

It is due to the cost reduction principle that diverse and substitute materials for various engineering projects such as construction, aircraft light-weight and computer components have been developed. However, the need to reduce the cost of an engineering project may result in the application of flawed shortcuts and design fabrications, which in the end results in engineering disasters that are too costly both in terms of the lives lost and the devastating effects of such disasters either to the environment or to the economy of a nation (Ballarini & Okazaki, 2010).

Nevertheless, such disasters of a higher magnitude have served to enlighten the engineering community on the relevance of prioritizing the safety needs of any engineering structure or project, over the cost reduction needs. The learning from major mistakes that have been done in the past has made it possible for numerous policy regulations and engineering efforts to be applied towards avoiding the repeat of such occurrences. Thus, this discussion seeks to analyze the Mississippi River Bridge disaster, with a view to establishing the particular aspects of the engineering disaster in relation to its causes, the engineering failures involved, the future recommendations for improvement to avoid such accidents and the implications of the disaster to the overall engineering