Q&A: What happens if engineers mess up their calculations when designing structures?
Posted by James on March 12, 2013 · 3 Comments
Question by : What happens if engineers mess up their calculations when designing structures?
I know that physics can be really tricky and its easy to make a mistake, especially the complicated kind of physics engineers do.
How do you prevent mistakes from happening?
Best answer:
Answer by Alex
well there is bound to be mistakes, so they ALWAYS create some failsafe that if they forgot something, something else can make up for that.
What do you think? Answer below!
Sometimes, very bad things. Read below about an infamous case in which, essentially, not being familiar with basic statics principles resulted in five deaths and thousands of dollars of equipment destroyed. A technician incorrectly estimated that a tower section would be safely supported by a number of bolts whose individual strengths added up to well over the weight of the section. But unfortunately the manner in which the load was lifted magnified the actual stress on the bolts, causing them to fail.
Licensed professional engineers put their signature on designs and assume responsibility for the calculations, similar to the way doctors assume responsibility for prescriptions, or lawyers for the legal documents they prepare. In my field (electrical) PE’s are not very common, but civil and mechanical engineering jobs often require a PE license.
Now a days, a different engineer usually catches it. That’s why Boeing has fifty different engineers designing an aircraft wing. They really would like it to be right the first time before they load it with people.
If a mistake does slip through, it can range from trivial to disastrous.
They took it out of my check. Thank fully it was a small mistake.
Another job my boss ended up in court, and they split the baby in half. No bad calcs the market just collapsed. We had books an books of calculations to bring to court.
And companies can buy insurance policies. Errors and omissions is for real estate deals, but you can get others. If you appear sloppy and unprofessional, the insurance company will quote higher or no bid.
And you make models. If the model blows up, “Oh well back to the drawing board.” like the famous cartoon. It crash is only balsa or computer electrons.