There have also been plenty of disastrous engineering failures that have caused lots of harm and destruction. Many of these failures have happened for a number of reasons: carelessness, negligence, design issues and safety protocol.

Following engineering disasters, professionals and leaders have spent a long time learning from the decisions that were made. In this blog, we explore a number of disastrous engineering failures and why they happened.

3 Disastrous Engineering Failures In History

The Titanic – the sinking of an “unsinkable” ship

RMS Titanic was the ship that was dubbed the “unsinkable” ship. It has this nickname due to its advanced safety features, including watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors. On 15 April 1912, the boat collided with an iceberg during her maiden maiden voyage to New York from Southampton. The collision led to the ship sinking and a death toll greater than 1500.

Built in Belfast, the Titanic had a total length of 269.1 m and a height of 53.3 m. After entering service, RMS Titanic was the largest ship in service. The plates of steel that assembled the hull were 6 feet by 30 feet and between 1 to 1.5 inches thick. Astonishingly, the hull was built with 2,000 of these steel plates. She cost a total of £1.5 million to construct in the early 1900s. That equates to approximately £150 million in todays money.

RMS Titanic had 20 lifeboats on board during her maiden voyage, capable of carrying up to 1,178 people – only half the number of people on board. Due to its perception of being ‘unsinkable,’ the relevant training and practices were not completed. As a result, when the lifeboats were being filled when the titanic was sinking, they were only half full.

Researchers believe the steel’s high sulfur content and low-temperature water, contributed to the boat sinking. This is due to it causing the metal and rivets in the hull to harshly degrade.

Another contributing factor to this disastrous engineering failure was the number of lifeboats available. Because it was deemed “unsinkable”, the number of lifeboats onboard was reduced to increase the number of first-class seats.

The Nuclear Disaster in Chernobyl – some disasters happen without warning

Occurring on April 26, 1986, The Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion is one of the worst nuclear disasters in history. It is one of only two nuclear energy disasters rated at a seven, the maximum severity, on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The disaster resulted in a large amount of radioactive material being released into the atmosphere.

The incident occurred during a safety test to measure the ability of the steam turbine to power the emergency feedwater pumps following a loss of the main electrical power supply. However, during the planned safety test, the operators accidentally dropped the power output close to zero, somewhat due to xenon poisoning. During recovery of the power drop, the operators removed several control rods, which were more than the limits set by the operating procedures.

Following testing, the operators shut the reactor down. This resulted in a localized increase in reactivity within the reactor due to a design flaw. The increase in stresses, lead to a rapid decrease in pressure and caused the coolant to flash to steam. Further reactor activity led to greater coolant temperatures and resulted in steam explosions, melting the reactor core.

The melted reactor, combined with explosions, destroyed the reactor building. An open-air reactor core fire followed, hurling radioactive contaminants airborne. These contaminants were deposited onto parts of Russia and Europe.

Studies from the World Health Organization predict 4,000 fatalities in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. A large proportion of these is due to exposure to radioactive material. 

The Apollo 13 Disaster – when design failure leads to disaster

On April 11, 1970, Apollo 13 suffered an oxygen tank explosion hours after the lift-off to the moon. The disaster led to three astronauts having a serious threat to their life. It is known as a “successful failure” because it was a mission to the moon, the astronauts overcame challenges and returned home safely following a failure on the spacecraft.

Apollo 13 launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida, and only minutes later was into orbit around Earth. However, 56 hours after launch, the oxygen tank in the service modules failed. The oxygen was critical to allow the astronauts to breathe and generate electricity, operating the life support systems. 

During a routine inspection, the flight controller request the stirring fans in the tanks be activated. The intention was to improve the accuracy of the pressure readings in the oxygen tank. The action was taken because the sonar module’s oxygen tank pressure sensor appeared to be malfunctioning. 

Ninety-five seconds after the fans were activated, the astronauts heard a “pretty large bang”, accompanied by oscillations in electrical power and the discharge of the attitude control thrusters. The stir of the oxygen tank kindled damaged wire insulation inside. As a result, an explosion occurred resulting in the contents of both the (service modules) SM’s oxygen tanks venting into space. 

Following the incident, the mission was cancelled, and the mission controllers worked to bring the crew home alive. To make this possible, the CM’s (control module) systems had to be shut down to conserve its remaining resourcing for reentry. This allowed the crew to transfer to the LM (lunar module) and use it similarly to a lifeboat.

Conclusion

The disastrous engineering failures discussed above were avoidable if the engineering involved had resulted in better decisions. A vital role for engineers to remember is that their decisions have the potential to have serious consequences and should strive to make the best decisions.

Wikipedia has been used as a source of information for this post.