This document discusses catastrophic engineering failures. It begins by defining catastrophic failure as the sudden, unrecoverable failure of a system that often leads to further failures. Several examples of catastrophic failures are provided, including bridge collapses, dam failures, and space shuttle disasters. Primary causes of such failures are then outlined, including human factors, design flaws, materials failures, and extreme conditions. The document concludes by emphasizing the importance of risk management, anticipating unexpected scenarios, and ensuring safety through redundant systems and teams to prevent catastrophic engineering failures.

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Catastrophic Engineering
Failure:
What it means
and
what you can do about it

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
What is catastrophic Failure?

Examples

What to do about it
Topics

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
Sudden catastrophic failure of a system

Recovery is impossible

Often leads to cascade systems failure

Often used for structural failure

Extended to other engineering failure
What is catastrophic Failure ?

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Examples
• BP Gulf of Mexico
• Columbia Space Shuttle
• Ray Rail bridge
• South Fork dam
• De Havilland Comet
• Space Shuttle Challenger

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Tay Bridge

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Tay Rail Bridge Disaster of 1879
• Centre half mile of bridge destroyed
• When the train was crossing in a storm
• Terrible design
• Replacement was a separate
structure

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South Fork dam in 1889
• Located near South Fork Pennsylvania, USA
• 20 million tons of water burst through
• Less than well-engineered repairs to old dam
• Raised the lake level
• Several days of unprecedented rainfall
• Dam broke and water destroyed several towns
• 2209 people killed
• Change to legislation from fault based to strict
liability

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De Havilland Comet

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De Havilland Comet
• World's first commercial jet liner to reach production
• Aerodynamically clean design with four de Havilland
Ghost turbo jet engines buried into wings
• Low noise pressurised cabin
• Catastrophic metal fatigue leading to aircraft tearing
apart in mid flight
• Cause traced to window installation methodology
plus pressurisation
• Initially, onboard fire was blamed

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Space Shuttle Challenger

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Space Shuttle Challenger
• Twenty fifth flight of the American Space Shuttle
Program
• Destruction of Challenger 73 seconds after lift-off
• Death of all 7 crew members
• Failure of an O-ring seal on one of the solid rocket
boosters
• Flamethrower-like flare impinged upon one of the two
after booster attach struts
• Catastrophic structural failure

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Space Shuttle Columbia

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Space Shuttle Columbia
• Space Shuttle mission launched by
NASA
• Multidisciplinary microgravity and
science research mission
• Seven member crew
• Disintegration during re-entry
• Piece of foam that broke off
during launch and damaged
thermal protection components
causing excessive heat buildup

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Do you have any examples of catastrophic failure ?
• List any examples that you can think of by
typing in the text area to the left of this
• Any suggestions – great or small - would be
great
AND – if you can...
• A suggested cause
And
• A suggested fix to prevent this happening in
future

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Primary causes of Engineering Disasters
• Human factors
• Design flaws
• Materials failures
• Extreme conditions or environments
• Combinations

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Primary causes of Engineering Disasters
• Insufficient knowledge .....................36%
• Underestimation of influence ............. 16%
• Ignorance, carelessness, .................. 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%

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As engineering professionals:
• We have to strive ALWAYS
for a zero accident
environment.
• Our most important task at
all times
• No matter what the situation

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Conclusion
• Risk Management critical
• Lateral thinking
• Anticipating the totally unexpected
• Re-assess original assumptions
• Cross check
• Multiple teams solving one problem
• Fail safe
• And as Robert de Niro remarked:
• If there is any doubt – there is NO
DOUBT

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Thank You For Your Interest
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