Risk Management in Engineering (pdf)

Risk Management in Engineering
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Abstract—Risk management can be defined as the
identification, evaluation and prioritization of the risks which is
generally followed by coordination and economic applications of
the various resources for the purpose of monitoring, minimizing
and controlling the probability or the impacts of any kind of
unfortunate events. This is even done for the purpose of
maximizing the realization of the opportunities. The main
objective of risk management includes the providing of assurance
regarding the fact that uncertainty would not be associated with
deflecting the various type of endeavors from the goal that any
business is having. This report is has an objective of explaining
the basic concepts of risk by identifying followed by describing of
the four engineering failures. A case of failure has been chosen
from each category.
Keywords—component, formatting, style, styling, insert (key
words)
I. INTRODUCTION (HEADING 1)
Risk management is generally considered as external
component of any kind of project which is very important for
the project. In cases when the risks are not identified along
being managed and mitigated accordingly the various type of
consequences might arise and this would ultimately lead to the
failure of the project. There exists inherent risk in each and
every type of project but despite of the existing risks certain
steps have been taken for the purpose of mitigating the negative
consequences along with ensuring the fact that there exists
successful delivery of the projects [1].
The main objective of engineering includes the mitigation
or elimination of the risks and if this is done completely then it
might lead to various types of problems. The main
responsibility of the engineers is also associated with ensuring
the fact that their work is completed in accordance to the
purpose that has been intended along with being according to
the level or performance and also for the purpose of avoiding
the failures. If any case of catastrophic failure occurs then it
might lead to severe damage to the property along with causing
a harm to the environment associated with the loss of life as
well. Progression of the engineering takes place through both
results of any kind project and the results mainly includes
successful project or a failed project. Reviewing of past
mistakes can be done by the engineers after facing failures in
the past projects which would be initially leading to the
preparation of a better plans in order to make sure there does
not occur any type of risk in the future [2]. The evolvement of
engineering is going on from last few decades associated with
various kind of new innovations along with integration of the
lessons which has been learnt from the failure which has
occurred related to the laws and the standards.
The report has been associated with discussing four case
studies along with discussing about the degree of size as well as
the level of impact. This past failures are to be analyzed in
order to get familiarized with the previous work processes and
to make new comparisons by which the engineering process
would be evolving and also to allow the establishment of the
common modes which are related to failure. The report is also
associated with providing a brief discussion about the back
ground of each case study that has been selected followed by
discussing about the inherent risks [3]. Beside this the report
has also been associated with deriving a casual chain for each
of the case study along with providing explanations of the
sequences of events that are the root cause of this failures.
After all this a risk management is to be formulated in order to
verify the magnitude of the risk by considering some major
components like the rate or injury, death, damages and also the
cost.
II. LARGE AND LOCALISED– GRANVILLE TRAIN ACCIDENT 1977
BRIEF BACKGROUND
The Granville rail disaster occurred in the year of 1977 on
18th January.at Granville, South Wales which is a western
suburb of Sydney. This happened when one of the crowded
commuter train was derailed which was running into the
support of the road bridge which ultimately collapsed onto two
of the train’s passenger’s carriages. This is considered as one of
the worst rail disaster in the Australian history and was also
having the greatest loss of life in a confined area where around
84 people died and more than 213 peoples were injured and
around 1300 got affected due to this. While approaching
towards Granville railway station it left the rails and hit a row
of support of the overhead bold Street Bridge which was
constructed by using steel and concrete [4]. Ultimately the
derailed engine and first two carriages passed the bridge. After
this thee first carriage broke from the other carriages and due to
this Carriage one was torn open after colliding with the mast
beside the track, and this ultimately resulted in killing of eight
passengers. The other carriages ultimately resulted in a halt
with the second carriage. The third carriages rear half, and the

fourth carriage’s forward half came to rest under the weakened
bridge, which weighted almost 570 tons
A. Failure of the engineeering:
After enquiring it was found that the major reason lying
behind the crash was the unsatisfactory conditions of the
permanent way and due to poor fastening of the tracks made
the track to spread and this ultimately led to the leaving of the
front wheel of the locomotive to get off the rails. Another
major reason lying behind the failure of this engineering work
was because of low maintenance of the 46 Class locomotive
which was having a faulty L6wheel which was discovered to
be totally unserviceable in the year of 1976 on the month of
August [5]. Other major factor included the structure of the
bridge which means when the bridge was built, the base of its
deck was found to be one meter lower than the road. Besides
this concrete was also added on top in order to build the
surface up level with the road.
B. Analysis of the Engineering:
In order to avoid the catastrophic circumstances surrounding
the South Fork Dam failure has been listed below:
 Certain qualified personnel’s are to be employed
 Validation of the design is to be done along with
doing engineering surveys.
 Provisioning of the advices related to engineering is
to be done.
 Verification of the materials which are to be used for
the purpose of construction of the bridge.
 Need of making a disaster plan
 Construction of the checks related to quality
 Lastly frequent engineering checks needs to be done
along with doing inspection.
The lessons which have been learnt includes the following:
 All the structures of the bridges needs to be designed
in such a way that they would become totally capable
of tackling various type of weaknesses along with
having a suitable disaster recovery program.
 In order to preserve and to detect the reasons behind
the failure, there should exists certain maintenance,
inspection and operations on the dam.
 Besides this the professional engineers should be
associated with reviewing any kind of modifications
done on the construction of the bridge as this would
be associated with inadvertently reducing the capacity
[6].
 The human factors have been associated with directly
attributing to the accident.
III. MEDIUM AND LOCALISED – THE RIVER DEE
BRIDGE COLLAPSE IN CHESTER UK, 1847
The collapse of the River Dee Bridge can be considered as
one of the biggest example of a failure related to medium and
localized engineering. This project was completed in
September 1846 and which was designed by Robert
Stephenson, this bridge was constructed by making use of the
two masonry piers which includes the cast iron girders and
reinforced by making use of the wrought iron trusses in order
to span the two hundred and fifty feet wide river section. In the
year of 1847 on 24th May, the third section of the bridge failed,
while a train was crossing the bridge plunging into the river.
This accident resulted in five deaths (three passengers, the train
guard and the locomotive fireman) along with 9 people being
injured [9].
Prior to the failure of the bridge failure, six trains had
passed over the bridge on the same day. In this day, Stephenson
was also worried about the potential risk that was for due to the
fire which was resulted from a sparks and ash from passing
trains and this initially ignited the wooden sleepers. He was
associated with ordering, that a five-inch layer of ballast was to
be placed over the timber sleepers before the passing of the
next train over the bridge [10]. The ballast applied an additional
18 tons in an even distribution across the bridge.
A. Engineering Failure Qualification
When the subsequent investigation was conducted regarding
the bridge failure various key contributing factors were
identified that were responsible for this disaster which was
indeed an engineering failure and was mainly centered on the
selection of the poor material. Besides this Stephenson was
also accused of negligence, but the final ruling of the jury for
the inquest into the disaster ruled that the victims had died
accidentally.
B. Engineering Analysis
Some of the different approaches that could have been taken
for the purpose of preventing the failure of the bridge have
been listed below:
IV. The initial designs for the bridge mainly included the
usage of five piers in order to provide support to the bridge.
This may have been sufficient for the purpose of prevent the
bridge from failure through the reduction in the span of each
girder.
V. The wrought iron was selected instead of cast iron
which would have been contributed to a stronger and safer
bridge [11].
VI. Use of the more traditional ‘I’ beam instead of the
decorative cavetto moulding would have been associated with
reducing the stress concentrations within the girders.
Barriers that should have been in place:
VII. Conducting of the Independent design review and
design approval should have been done;
 Guides for selecting the materials in order to assure
performance should have been followed;
 Developing a detailed load path analysis and stress
reports for the loads expected to be carried by the
structure [12].