Instructor:
J. K. Ferrone
DTEC 124
Drafting/engineering 124
This webpage has
been created to help you complete your library research
assignment. You are to write a report (5-8 pages) about
the works of a prominent engineer in the field OR significant
engineering success and failures.
Choose a
prominent
engineer.
Engineer Failure
When engineers talk about failure they're not necessarily talking
about failing a test or failing a course. They're probably talking
about what happens when something they've built or designed or
analyzed doesn't work. Engineering failure can mean that a
computer program doesn't work properly, but it can also mean that
a bridge collapses or a power plant shuts down or a satellite
spins out of its orbit. Engineering failures may not happen often,
but when they do there is often a loss of life, and there is
always a huge cost. Engineers study failures in depth so that they
can understand what went wrong and avoid recreating the same
problem. In engineering, as in life, there are valuable lessons to
be learned from failure.
Sometimes failures aren't as bad as they first appear - especially
during research. In fact, several really useful things wouldn't
exist if someone hadn't failed at something else first!
Spence Silver, the chemical engineer who developed
the reusable, weak glue on Post-It Notes, was actually trying to
make a stronger glue for tape. He thought he had failed until one
of the other engineers in the lab realized what this new glue was
good for.
The problem was just the opposite for Leo
Baeckeland. He was trying to find a synthetic substitute for
varnish (a substance which protects wooden furniture and floors),
but what he produced was too tough. He made the substance even
tougher and ended up developing one of the world's first moldable
dyed plastics.
Another chemical engineer, James Wright, was
trying to create a rubber substitute out of silicon. What he ended
up with was just way too gooey and bouncy to be used for anything
practical, so he put it aside. Five years later, someone else put
the bouncy go in an egg and sold it as "Silly Putty
Engineering History
Engineering Failures
Earthquakes
Bridge Disasters
-
List of Bridge Disasters
Northwest University's (USA)
list and links to bridge disaster pages. Some of the more well-known are:
-
Tacoma
Narrows Bridge
-
Quebec
Bridge collapse
-
Silver
Bridge collapse
-
Long Sault Rapids Bridge
(1898) Collapse of steel framed
rail bridge in Cornwall, Ontario
-
Ponte Del
Farro Bridge
(2001) Collapse of concrete bridge in
Portugal owing to illegal sand extraction
-
Concord Foot
Bridge (2000) Collapse of foot bridge over highway in North Carolina, USA,
owing to incorrect application of materials
-
Rainbow Bridge, 1938
Collapse of iron bridge in New York, USA
-
Wood Bridge Failure Analysis -Analyses
of failed private wooden bridges, with photographs.
-
Maccabiah Foot Bridge, 1997 -
Collapse of foot bridge in Jerusalem. News article detailing
what went wrong.
-
Lacey V. Murrow Motor Bridge, 1990 -Sinking
of floating concrete motor bridge. Single page with detailed account,
discussion, engineers drawings, photograph and detailed mathematical
explanation.
-
Hoan Bridge, 2000
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's coverage of the Hoan Bridge
failure. Articles include photos, editorials and event descriptions.
Material Failure
-
Material
failures: background stories behind specific failure types and problems in
various engineering materials and components; this site compiled by the
Department of Materials Engineering, The Open University, U.K.
Careers
-
Just4Fun: career interviews of engineers
-
El
Cajon, California 92019