Too Bad Hippocrates Wasn't an Engineer

NY Times ^ | June 11, 2006 | JOHN SCHWARTZ

[neverdem]

IN ancient Babylon, they knew from accountability. Under the Code of Hammurabi, "If a builder build a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death." What's more, "If it kill the son of the owner, the son of that builder shall be put to death."

Engineers these days don't have that worry. Mistakes may carry legal penalties and a measure of shame. The people who die are those who depend on the engineers' work.

Nearly 1,600 people died in Louisiana during Hurricane Katrina and the flooding that followed. A June 1 report from investigators working for the Army Corps of Engineers concluded that flaws in the design, building and maintenance of the New Orleans hurricane protection system — the levees, floodwalls, pumps and gates — played a big role in putting 80 percent of the city under water.

Critics of the corps had argued for months that mistakes made the toll worse than it might have been, and they've alleged that there were more flaws in the system than the corps' report conceded. But with the admission by the corps, the tragedy of Katrina moved officially from the exclusive realm of natural disasters to that of disasters caused, in part, by man. John Barry, author of "Rising Tide," about the Mississippi floods of 1927, called the Katrina flooding "by a large margin, the worst engineering mistake in the history of civilization."

Thus do the dirt, concrete and steel of New Orleans take their place on the dishonor roll of engineering disasters. The list is long, and includes the failure of the Teton Dam in Idaho in 1976, which killed 11 people and caused an estimated $1 billion in...

[No Truce With Kings]

"What about the pics in comment# 1? Do they cause any grief?"

I can comment on the Shuttle picture since I was working at JSC (for Lockheed) at the time.

When they shipped the Orbiter to the Cape, they did not have all of the flight tiles finished yet. Those were to be added at KSC. There were concerns about the aerodynamics of the Orbiter atop the 747 transport if they flew without a full set of tiles, so temporary tiles (without the thermal protection capability) were added. Because they were to be removed at the Cape, they were stuck on with a temporary glue. (I believe it was water soluble).

The 747 went through a rainstorm en route, and when it stopped to refuel (I believe at San Antonio) it was discovered that a lot of the temporary tiles had fallen off. In engineering terms it was no biggie, because these tiles were supposed to be removed, and the Orbiter/747 system flew just as well without the tiles as with. (In plain English, they did not need to add the temporary tiles.)

Some media whores took pictures of the vehicle, and spread it across the airways as an example of NASA incompetence. NASA management then panicked, and ordered the temporary tiles replaced with permanent glue, so as to stop the press criticism. It was done, the new tiles did not fall off over the rest of the trip.

Unfortunately, they also did not come off in the processing facility. They had to be chipped off. It took a lot longer, and some of the flight tiles were damaged while trying to remove the temporaries -- requiring replacement in turn, further delaying things.

So the REAL problem was not due to the engineering decisions. They made the right call. Stick on temporary tiles with temporary glue. Don't worry if they fall off. On the other hand, management decisions managed to screw up the processing schedule big time. And why? To keep the press from playing gotcha games, which is all this article is anyway.

[Fzob]

Well said.

Nothing in engineering (or life for that matter) is risk free.

[NonLinear]

I wonder what kind of engineering we would get if the lives of the engineers depended on the consequences of their poor design?

I design chemical plants. Then I help start them up. Then I go back to do more projects - debottleneck, new processes, new production lines, etc. My life DOES depend on the consequences of my designs. A lot of other peoples lives do too. Get real.

[Redbob]

"IN ancient Babylon, they knew from accountability."

In ancient New York, they knew how to speak and write the English language.

[Redbob]

"I wonder what kind of engineering we would get if the lives of the engineers depended on the consequences of their poor design?"

As an engineer who does drive the vehicles he designs, as most do, I can only wonder what kind of engineering we'd have if someone like YOU were an engineer?

[metmom]

The Ford Pinto comes to mind...

[Dinsdale]

The contractor made a change to the design of the sky bridge, which made it a lot easier to build, but much less capable of bearing weight.

And a structual engineer signed off on the change.

BTW he did'nt make it much easier to build. He made it possible to build. The original design featured metal rods threaded for a good 15 meters. A tricky proposition at best.

[anymouse]

politicians are managers with even less sense of responsibility for their actions and even greater inflation of their sense of self-importance.

[MrCruncher]

What did the Code of Hammurabi say about those committing treason against their own country, such as the NY TIMES?