How can engineers help avoid catastrophes, such as the Jonestown flood, the Kans

Question

How can engineers help avoid catastrophes, such as the Jonestown flood, the Kansas City hotel walkway, Challenger? Briefly describe each of these incidents (1 sentence each). What might be some common root causes for these events? (1 sentence) Can we plan for failure? Can we learn from failure?

Engineering Economics, thank you

1. How can engineers help avoid catastrophes, such as the Jonestown flood, the Kansas City hotel walkway, Challenger? Briefly describe each of these incidents (1 sentence each). What might be some common root causes for these events? (1 sentence) Can we plan for failure? Can we learn from failure?

Explanation / Answer

1) The Jonestown flood was caused when the South Fork Dam on the Little Conemaugh River failed on May 31, 1889 and due to this more than 14.55 million cubic meters of water came out of the dam and some says that the flow was equivalent to the flow of Mississippi River and this catastrophic fail cause more than 2,000 people lives and $17 million fo damage which is equivalent to around $500 millions of 2017.

The Kansan city hotel walkway incident took place In the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, killing 114 people and injuring 216 others during a tea dance on July 17, 1981 and it was considered as the most deadliest structural collapse that happened in US history. This structural collapse happened when connection of the fourth floor failed and this led to the fall of fourth floor over second floor and then both the floors fell on the lobby floor below causing deaths and injuries of people.

2) The common root for the above mentioned two structural collapses are the issues with the structure’s design which failed the dam or the stairway and both of the calamities happened due to the human error which came because of the negligence while designing and constructing the state of the art man made structures.

And yes it is very possible to learn from these structural calamities as in the case of Hyatt hotel stairway during its construction the design was changed which causes the load on the fourth floor stairway to become double, this was although a very minor change to reduce the constructional complexity but it cause a lot more than what was thought and hence it is of utmost importance to give respect to the design parameters and inclusion of Margin of Safety in every design.

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