This article explores forensic engineering from the perspective of failure investigation. It highlights what constitute an engineering failure and how the structural engineer should approach a failure investigation.
Category: Lessons from Failures
There must be a delicate balance between progress and sacrifice. The Implosion of the Titan Submersible is an engineering disaster that should remind engineers never to compromise safety in the quest for innovation.
The Comet air crashes should teach and remind all engineers that, while all the analysis and design tools might be at your disposal, an engineer can only analyze and truly design for the situations they can actually imagine.
This second article in the series on temporary works discusses temporary works failures and how structural engineers can learn from them
In 2022, Nigeria recorded over 61 incidents of building collapse in 2022. As I write this article, I don’t know of any forensic report that has been made public on any of these incidents, or do you?
As with almost every structural failure, it is the human factors that holds answers as to why the opportunity to forestall the failure was missed. In this article the role played by human factors in structural failures is explored.
In 1879, inadequate design, ineffective supervision, poor workmanship, tight budget restrictions, time constraints and a general lack of understanding of the response of structures to dynamic forces from wind culminated into one of the deadliest structural failures of all time; the Tay Bridge collapse.
Inspection of activities on a site during construction is a very high-risk operation requiring expertise and experience. Site inspections are of paramount significance as they aim to minimize the risk of accidents arising within the construction site…
This article examines ways in which a structural engineer can identify the potentials for reuse and refurbishment of buildings at the early conceptual design stages
In 2007 under-engineering, inefficient regulation, ever increasing dead loads combined with inadequate inspections led to the deadliest structural failure in Minnesota’s history. The immediate aftermath saw an investigation board commissioned to probe the cause of the failure. The investigation would discover a systematic collapse in the very layers of defense the engineering profession creates towards preventing catastrophic failures