Question

Engineering Ethics Course

Assignment: Risk, Safety, and Accidents

1. State one design criterion that should be met in order to ensure a safe design.

2. Describe the following accident types:

a. Procedural

b. Engineered

c. Systemic

Answer 1

1.

Design criteria that should be met in order to ensure a safe design are :

i. Designs must be according to applicable laws

ii. A design must meet the standard of accepted engineering practice.

iii. Alternative designs that are potentially safer must be explored

iv. The engineer involved must try to predict any possible misuses of the product by customer and design should be made to minimize the risks caused by that misuse.

2.

Procedural accidents : These are the most common accidents that generally occur because of a bad choice or when regulations and established procedures are not followed properly.

They can be reduced by increasing training and supervision. New regulations and closer scrutiny by regulators will also help reducing them.

Engineered accidents : These are caused by the presence of flaws in the design of a product like failure of materials , devices that don't work well or as expected under all possible circumstances.

These failures should be anticipated during design phase. Must be caught and corrected during testing. Engineering accidents can be reduced by testing the product through the entire range of possible operating conditions

Systemic accidents : They are hard to understand and control. They are a series of minor mistakes and insignificant factors. They will result in catastrophic consequences when occurred.