Final Paper

ENGR 4501
James Perkins
5/29/2022
East Carolina University
Department of Engineering
ENGR 4501

Final Paper
Throughout this semester there have been incredible disasters from all different times
and lines of engineering. In some cases, the disasters can teach more than any success because
of the investigations that are done to try and prevent them from happening again. It also shows
the importance of how calculations need to be checked by more than just one person, and the
failsafe’s need to be maintained and properly put into place. This paper will go more into depth
about some of the engineering feats that need to be the most secure due to the nature of what
they are such as aeronautical and nuclear engineering.
When is comes to aerospace engineering, the likelihood that deaths will occur during a
disaster is high because when a plane crashes, the speed at which they crash as well as the
force they it has upon impact. When a plane crashes the aircraft structure collapses and the
individual is injured by impact with the airframe. These injuries can include amputations, major
lacerations and crushing. When the structure collapses, the victims may become trapped within
the wreckage and die of fire, drowning or traumatic asphyxia. A recap of what of what
happened with the DC-10 plane disaster is that the cargo doors would not automatically latch
like they were supposed to. The crew was aware of this but instead of trying to get it fixed they
would slam the door to make it close. This caused several planes to have their cargo door
ripped off causing the cabin to depressurize and the aircraft to crash. In my opinion is
something like a cargo door has an electronic latching system as soon as it doesn’t work
properly the plane should have been shut down and have everyone get off. If it was an issue
that could be fixed quickly then have it fixed and let the plane fly. If it not something that is
easily fixed, there should be an investigation on not jus the plane it happened on but all the
planes that are flying with that system. If one plane has an issue than the likelihood of another
having the same issue is higher. I do not think one plane having an issue is a reason to ground
all of them, but it is reason to have an inspection of the parts that have failed on other crafts.
There should also be safety feature that allows the door to be closed without the electronic
latch because a mechanical latch has fewer parts that can have a failure. The DC-10 planes also
had an issue with the fan disk on one of the planes that caused it to crash as well. The defect to
the fan disk was caused in the manufacturing process and that shows there are many places
that can cause failure not just in the operations of the aircraft. The inspection process for
airplanes should not be how a normal mass production line does it with random checks from
the finished parts. Every part than leaves the factory should be tested and inspected because
the if something goes wrong on a plane it is likely that there will be many casualties.
The Concorde was a plane that would be used for supersonic flights that can reach
speeds of mach 2. This plane was going to be an extreme engineering feat because it would
take the flight time across the Atlantic Ocean to a few hours instead of around 10. However,
with the technology that had to go into the Concorde the price to manufacture and fly one was

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East Carolina University
Department of Engineering
ENGR 4501

extremely high making the cost of tickets something that only the super wealthy would be able
to achieve. In theory this was a great idea, but in practice, this plane was very hard to keep up
on maintenance and if it needed to be fixed the parts cost a lot. With how much fuel this plane
used it was also very expensive just to have it running the flights. The Concorde was only able
to fly supersonic when it was over the ocean as to not disturb those on the land. This as a good
rule to have in place because it made sure that the sonic boom that would happen would not
hit on land. However, this did make it, so the Concorde had a very limited number of flight
options. The Concorde ending up running over a piece of metal leading to a puncher in the tire
that broke the fuel tank. This lead to an explosion and ultimately the grounding of the aircraft.
The grounding was due not only to some safety concerns but also for the price of having it in
the air.
The Boeing 737 MAX was a disaster that had two planes crash within 5 months of each
other. The MAX had a new engine that was more cost and fuel effective but was a larger engine
overall. Because of the height of the MAX the engine had to be raised slightly so it sat higher off
the ground. In this new position the engineers were worried that the plane would start to climb
if they were put to full throttle. Due to this concern, they put a new system in place that would
measure the speed and attack angle, and if the measured data looked like it could induce a
stall, the plane would automatically push the nose down. This is when the first mistake was
made. There was only one attack angle sensor on the aircraft meaning that if it failed for some
reason the reading would not be accurate and it could cause the plane to go into a nosedive.
This was the cause of both crashes that happened with the 737 MAX. There were no backup
systems to help except to turn off the system entirely. The second mistake that was made was
the pilots of the first crash were not made aware of this new system. They had no clue that this
system was on the plane so they could not turn it off in time because they did not have the
proper training. Boeing wanted to keep their image, so they stated that the cause of the crash
was a lack of training because they were not trained in the United States. This turned out to be
false because the pilot finished his schooling the United States. Instead of doing an
investigation on why this happened they shifted the blame onto the pilots. When the second
crash happened Boeing did the same thing where they blamed the pilots; however, it was
discovered from the black boxes that they did what they were supposed to. The system had a
malfunction and they turned it off as they were supposed to, but it was too late, the pilot could
not gain control of the aircraft and crashed. After the second crash countries started to ground
the plane, and it was so bad that pilots did not want to fly them to where they would be
worked on. This made people see that Boeing was more about the money than the safety of the
passengers that were in their flights. Boeing had to pay out to the victims’ families, and they
had to do extensive research on what went wrong to get it fixed for the planes to be put back
into the air.

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East Carolina University
Department of Engineering
ENGR 4501

Another type of engineering that needs to be held to a very high standard is nuclear
engineering, and in this case nuclear power plants. One of the most well known meltdowns
happened at the Chernobyl reactor in Ukraine. The design that was used for this reactor had a
moderator of graphite instead of water and did not have any heat exchangers. Nuclear reactors
run by nuclear decay releasing thermal energy to heat water and spin a turbine. This process
needs to have some sort of cooling aspect to keep the temperatures in the proper range for the
reaction to take place safely. At this reactor the explosion happened due to a flawed reactor
design that was operated with inadequately trained personnel. The people that worked at the
reactor did not have the proper training that was necessary to keep the plant running smoothly.
That along with a neglect of maintenance caused the reactor to go into meltdown creating a lot
of steam and eventually blowing up. The radiation was sent into the air and due to the wind
currents spread very far to the west without as much going east. After the incident, they had to
make a way to contain the radiation, so it does not just go out into the atmosphere. What they
decided to do was build a dome over it to contain everything in one place. The engineering that
went into the building needed to be top of the line because of how much radiation there was,
and how long it takes for radiation to disperse. Something I di not know until they presented
this information is that they have connected it back to the grid and it is making power again.
Hopefully the safety procedures as well as properly trained staff will keep this from happening
again.
The Daiichi nuclear power plant went into meltdown after a tsunami went higher than
the retaining walls and flooded the basements. This lead to the backup generators to fail
leading to the buildup of steam and exploding. They kept the radiation in check by spraying it
with a polymer agent and then building a cover around the entire thing. The tsunami walls were
set at 10 meters about the water, but the projected height for some of the tsunamis were 15 ft
this shows that some of the precautions that are in place may not have been up to the job they
wanted them to have. Safety precautions should be over engineered in my opinion to make
sure they will work if something bad happens. In this case, because they new about the threat
of a tsunami, they could have put the generators up high to keep power running through the
plant instead of having them in the basement that would have been the first place to flood.
Throughout this semester we have seen many engineering disasters that have lead to
the death and injury of many people. Some of the disciplines need to have a much more testing
because they have an inherently more dangerous possession such as nuclear or aerospace.
However, the problems that have occurred due to a worker not stepping up and telling a higher
up that there is a problem could have solved many of these disasters before they even
happened. The safety protocols that are put into place need to be known by everyone that
works on the project and maintained to insure that is something goes wrong it won’t be
catastrophic. If maintenance is neglected that can lead to some problems as well, but the staff
needs to have the proper training to combat an error in the process. Being vigilant and always

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East Carolina University
Department of Engineering
ENGR 4501

having an eye on your work can help to keep some of these errors in check, and some of the
failures that have been seen can show what can happen when a step is skipped. Being able to
see these disasters has shown just how easy it is to have something go wrong and have people
killed because of it.