Unit – III

ENGINEERING AS SOCIAL
EXPERIMENTATION
ENGINEERING AS SOCIAL
EXPERIMENTATION
 Engineering as Experimentation
 Engineers as responsible Experimenters
 Codes of Ethics
 A Balanced Outlook on Law.
ENGINEERING AS
EXPERIMENTATION
 Experimentation (Preliminary tests or Simulations) plays a
important role in the design of a product or process.
 Experimentation refers the activity, process or practice of making
experiments
 In all stages of converting a new engineering concept into a
design like, First rough cut design,
 Usage of different types of materials and processes,
 Detailed design,
 Further stages of work design and
 The finished product,
 Experiments and tests are conducted to evaluate the product.
Modifications are made based on the outcome of these
experiments.
Engineering Projects VS. Standard Experiments
SIMILARITIES TO STANDARD EXPERIMENTS

 Partial ignorance
 The project is usually executed in partial ignorance.
 Uncertainties exist in the model assumed.
 The behavior of materials purchased is uncertain and not
constant
 Uncertainty
 The final outcomes of projects are also uncertain, as in
experiments. Some times unintended results, side effects (bye-
products), and unsafe operation have also occurred.
 Continuous monitoring
 Monitoring continually the progress and gaining new knowledge
are needed before, during, and after execution of project as in
the case of experimentation.

SIMILARITIES TO
STANDARD EXPERIMENTS
 Learning from the past
 Engineers normally learn from their own prior designs and infer
from the analysis of operation and results
 The absence of interest and channels of communication, ego in
not seeking information, guilty upon the failure, fear of legal
actions, and mere negligence have caused many a failure
 Eg: Titanic lacked sufficient number of life boats—it had only 825
boats for the actual passengers of 2227, the capacity of the ship
being 3547!
 In the emergent situation, all the existing life boats could not be
launched. Forty years back, another steamship Arctic met with
same tragedy due to the same problem in the same region. But
the lesson was learned
DISIMILARITIES TO STANDARD EXPERIMENTS
Experimental Control
 Members for two groups should be selected in a standard

experimental control ie.,Group A and Group B.

 The members of the group ‘A’ should be given the

special experimental treatment.

 The group ‘B’ do not receive the same though they are in the

same environment. This group is called the ‘control group’

 Though it is not possible in engineering but for the projects

which are confirmed to laboratory experiments.

 Because, in engineering the experimental subjects are human

beings who are out of the control of the experimenter

 So An engineer has to work only with the past data available

with various groups who use the products.

DISIMILARITIES TO
STANDARD EXPERIMENTS
 Humane touch
 Engineering experiments involve human souls,
their needs, views, expectations, and creative use
as in case of social experimentation

DISIMILARITIES TO STANDARD EXPERIMENTS
Informed Consent
 Engineering experimentation is viewed as Societal Experiment
since the subject and the beneficiary are human beings
 When new medicines have been tested, it should be
informed to the persons who undergo the test.
 They have moral and legal rights to know about the fact which
is based on “informed consent” before take part in the
experiment. Engineering must also recognize these rights.
 Informed consent has two main principles such as knowledge
and voluntariness
 Knowledge: The persons who are put under the
experiment has to be given all the needed information to
make an appropriate decision
 Voluntariness: they must enter into the experiment without
any force, fraud and deception
 Valid informed consent
 The consent must be given voluntarily and not by any
force.
 All relevant information shall be presented/stated in a
clearly understandable form
 The consenter must be capable of processing the
information and to make rational decisions in a quick
manner.
 The information needed by a rational person must be
stated in a form to understand without any difficulty and
has to be spread widely.
 The experimenter’s consent has to be offered in
absentia of the experimenter by a group which
represents many experiments.
Informed consent - Engineering

 the knowledge about the product

 risks and benefits of using the product
 all relevant information on the product
DISIMILARITIES TO STANDARD EXPERIMENTS
Knowledge Gain:
 Scientific experiments have been conducted to acquire
new knowledge. Whereas engineering projects are conducted
as experiments not for getting new knowledge
 Suppose the outcomes of the experiment is best, it tells us
nothing new.
 Mean while, the unexpected outcomes put us search for
new knowledge.
 Engineering experiments at the most help us to
 verify the adequacy of the design
 to check the stability of the design parameters
 prepare for the unexpected outcomes
Responsible engineers in social
experimentation
 The engineers have so many responsibilities for serving
society
 Conscientiousness: A primary obligation to protect the safety
of human subjects and respect their right of consent.
 Relevant information: A constant awareness of the
experimental nature of any project, imaginative forecasting of
its possible side effects and a reasonable effort to monitor
them.
 Moral autonomy: Autonomous, personal involvement in all
steps of the project.
 Accountability: Accepting accountability for the results of the
project.
CONSCIENTIOUSNESS (sense of
awareness)
 Conscientious means showing that one cares about the doing
things well and thoroughly
 It means commitment to live according to certain values
 Engineers have to be sensitive to range of moral values and
responsibilities
 Willingness to develop the skill and expend the effort needed
to reach the best balance possible among various
considerations.
 Conscientiousness means consciousness because mere intent
is not sufficient.
 Respect foremost the safety and health of the affected, while
they seek to enrich their knowledge, rush for the profit, follow
the rules, or care for only the beneficiary
RELEVANT INFORMATION:
 Conscientiousness is impossible without
relevant factual information.
 Engineers have to show the commitment to
obtain and properly gauge all the information
related to meeting one’s moral obligations.
 Moral concern involves a commitment to
obtain and assess all available pertinent
information.
Comprehensive Perspective

 The engineer should grasp the context of his

work and ensure that the work involved
results in only moral ends.
 Not to Accept Design :-A product has a built-
in obsolete or redundant component to boost
sales with a false claim

Moral Autonomy

 Viewing engineering as social

experimentation, and anticipating unknown
consequences should promote an attitude of
questioning about the adequacy of the
existing economic and safety standards.
Accountablility

 Means - The capacity to understand and act

on moral reasons
 Means being responsible, liable, answerable
or obligated.
 Morally responsible peoples are expected to
accept morally responsibility for their actions
 According to standley milgram, people are
not willing to accept personal accountability
when placed under authority
CODES OF ETHICS
 Engineering Codes of Ethics have evolved over time
 Codes of ethics are propagated by various professional societies
 These codes of conduct are guidelines for specific group of
professionals to help them to perform their role
What are codes of ethics:
 it is also referred as codes of conduct.
 It express the commitment to the ethical conduct shared by
members of a profession.
 It also define the roles and responsibilities of professions
 This is used to help the professionals to apply moral & ethical
principles to the specific situations encountered in professional
practice
 The codes are based on 5canons- principles of ethics-integrity,
competence, individual responsibilities , professional responsibilities
and human concerns
 It is also noticed that ethical codes do not establish new ethical
principles
Positive Roles of codes of ethics
1. Inspiration
 It provides +ve inspiration for the professional to
exercises their duties effectively
2. Guidance
 It provide the guidelines for achieving the duties of
professionals
3. Support for Responsible Conduct
 It offers +ve and potential support to engineers to
perform their duties in ethical manner
4. discourage and disciplining professional
conduct
 These codes can be used to discouraging &
punishing unethical professional conduct
Positive Roles of codes of ethics
5. Education and promotion of mutual
understanding
 The ethical codes can be used in educational
institutions and other places for highlighting the
importance of moral issues and values
6. Contributing to positive image of the profession
 It discuss a positive image to the public of an
ethically committed professions
7. Protecting the status quo(current situations)
and destroying disagreement within the
profession
8. Promoting business interests through limit of
trade
Some of engineering societies

 ASME- American society of Mechanical

Engineers
 IE- The Institution of Engineers
 NSPE- National Society of professional
Engineers
 IEEE- Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers
Limitations of Codes of ethics
The codes are not remedy for all evils. They have many limitations, namely
1. Codes are restricted to general and vague wording.
 They cannot be straightaway applied to all situations.
2. It have internal conflicts, which may result in morel dilemma
3. The codes cant serve as the moral authority for professional
conduct
4. The circulation of codes of ethics for different branches of
engineering gives a feeling that ethical codes are relative
5. Not applicable to all situations
6. Even as members of the professional society, many are
unaware of the codes
7. Different societies have different codes
Balanced Outlook of Law
•A balanced outlook of laws emphasizes the
necessity of laws and regulations and their
limitations in governing engineering practice
•What is Law?
• It is a body of rules of action prescribed by controlling legal
authority and having binding legal force
• In general laws means all the rules established by authority or
custom for regulating the behavior of members of a
community or country
•Relationship between Laws and ethics:
• Ethics- what is ought to do, what is not
• Law – standard behavior required for individual
• 1969- Santa Barbara (offshore Spril)- 235000 gallon
crude oil
• 1758- babylons Building Code
• 1852 US Streamboat Code
• Baby Cribs
Balanced Outlook of Law
 Laws with respect to social implementation
 Laws are necessary because
 People are not fully responsible
 The companies are not encouraged to have moral
initiative due to competition
 Engineers are expected to play vital role in
framing implementing and propagating the
rules of engineering. Strictly follow rules
 Laws lag in technological development
 Industries feel that laws are imposing
excessive restrictions on engineering
applications
Proper Role of Laws

 The rules which govern engineering practice

should be construed as of responsible
experimentation rather than rules of a game.
 In situations where the experimentation is
large and time consuming, the rules must not
try to cover all possible outcomes, and they
should not compel the engineers to follow
inflexible courses of action.
 The regulation should be broad, but make
engineers accountable for their decisions,
 Industrial Standards
 Standardization primarily means setting up standards by which level,
quality, quantity, value performance or service may be evaluated
 Simply, It is the process of defining and applying conditions required to
ensure that a given range of requirements can be easily met with minimum
changes in an economical and reproducible manner by the latest technique.
 What are standards?
 They are formed by companies for their in-house use and by professional
associations and trade associations for industry-wide use.
 Some times standards are parts of laws and official regulations
 ISO 9000-2000 series are typical examples in this direction

• The financial industry has given us countless scandals and front-page news stories about
financial professionals who have defrauded investors, employers and their peers.
• There is no doubt that greed is a powerful emotion, but sometimes unethical behavior
boils down to a lack of education on basic principles of financial standards
Standards Facilitate

 Interchangeability
 Accuracy in measurement
 Ease of handling
 Prevention of harms
 Decreased production costs
 Quality products
Types of standards
Benefits of standards

 It helps manufacturers, clients and public

 It maintain a steady and balanced
competition among industries
 It ensure a measure of quality
Negative aspects of standards

 Reduce choice for customers

 It reduce initiative and interests of workers
Problems with law in engineering

 Minimal compliance
 Technological development
 Many laws are ‘nolaws’ (without enforceable
sanctions)
 Influential powerful persons violate the laws
 The Challenger Disaster
A Case-study in Engineering Ethics
 Shuttle Components
 Orbiter

 Liquid Rocket

Booster
 Solid Rocket Booster
Shuttle Components
Chronology of the Related Events

 1974
 NASA contracts Morton Thiokol
 1976
 NASA accepts the design based on the Titan
missiles
 The joints are sealed by
 Two synthetic rubber O-rings,
 177 clevis pins,
 Heat shield putty
The Cause of the Disaster
 Early Problems

 1977
 Tests at Thiokol show O-ring leakage
 Joint is made stronger by changing sizes
 1981
 Post-launch investigation showed O-ring erosion
due to hot gages.
 Early Problems

 January of 1985 launch

 First cold-weather launch
 Post-launch investigation showed joint failure
 Tests showed O-rings inability to fill the gap due to
joint rotation at lower temperatures
 Early Problems

 July 1985
 Thiokol redesigns the joints w/o O-rings – The
design was not ready for Challenger launch
 Political Climate

 Congress is unhappy with NASA

 Competition with Russians to be the first to

observe Halley’s comet.

 Pressure to launch before President

Reagan’s State of the Union Address
 Days before Launch

 First launch attempt postponed

 The next launch date was set and was to be

attended by Vice President Bush.

 The temperature at launch: 29 degrees F.

 Days Before Launch

 NASA starts an investigation of the effect of

low temperatures on the O-ring seals
 Organization involved
 NASA
 Marshall Space Flight Center
 Morton Thiokol
 Engineering Investigation Before
Launch
 Players at NASA
 Larry Mulloy: SRB Project Manager at Marshall
 Players at Thiokol
 Roger Boisjoly: A SRB engineer
 Arnie Johnson: A SRB engineer
 Joe Kilminster: SRB engineering manager
 Alan McDonald: SRB engineering director
 Bob Lund: Vice president for engineering
 Jerald Mason: General manager
 Engineering Investigation Before
Launch
 Boisjoly and Johnson recommend the launch
to be postponed.

 Bob Lund, the VP for engineering agrees and

makes a similar recommendation.
 Investigation Before Launch

 Larry Mulloy, the NASA manager of SRB

asks Joe Kilminister, the SRB manager at
Thiokol, for his opinion.

 Kilminister agrees with other Thiokol

engineers and recommends a launch
delay.
 Investigation Before Launch

 After discussion with Mason

 Lund reverses his decision regarding launch!
 Thiokol recommend the launch to proceed
 The Launch in January 1986

 The overnight temperatures drop to 8 F

 The temperature of SRB at launch is 28 F

 There is an immediate blow-by of hot gas at

launch. The seal fails quickly over an arc of
70 degrees.
 The Launch in January 1986

 The by-products of combustion forms a

glassy oxide that reseals the joint.
 The brittle oxide is shattered
 Hot gases quickly burn through the liquid
rocket booster
 The Aftermath

 Causes of the accident are attributed to

 Inability of the O-rings to expand and seal at low
temperatures.
 Heat shield putty did not perform at low
temperatures
 Fits and seating of the O-ring was affected by low
temperature.
 The Aftermath

 After all the testimonials

 Biosjoly is taken off the project and subtly
harassed by Thiokol management.