Underestimated Risk In Engineering Design

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Underestimated Risks
Risk analysis in engineering design has played an important role from a very long time ago. At any certain level of designing, the understanding about the potential risk is crucial and must be carefully considered. At the last year in college, senior students will take capstone design project and learn about how to deal with risk analysis. There are many important risks needed to weigh and assess in the real world industry. These approaches should be technocratic and democratic depending on the cases. There are many important risks that most mechanical engineering should deal: Pressure vessels, structural failure, oil rig explosion, etc. Engineers must follow the code of ethics and do the right things.
Pressure vessels
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On 17 July 1981, two suspended walkways of the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri, collapsed. This killed 114 and injured 200 people at the event. The rod supporting the walkways were designed correctly. However, the contractor changed the design of the connecting rod making the force acting on the connection double. That is an example of the risk that can happen in the real world structure. Engineers should design the rod with high safety factor and have a good communication with the contractors. The structural failure lead to catastrophic consequences. The engineers should inspect that the contractors follows the design. The risk in structure failure is pretty …show more content…
Technocratic and democratic approaches are used to make decision. Technocratic decision based on the technical people, professional people related to that specific field or area. The decision making are solely based on these people who understand most about the risk and the problems. Democratic decision based on the most majority of people. The final decision are the decision that most people agree with. There are some advantages and disadvantages of technocratic and democratic decision. For approaching the potential risks, if the percentages of the technocratic group is not substantially lower than democratic, the technocratic group should decide. However, if the percentage of democratic group is significantly higher, the democratic group should make the

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