Essay On I-35 Bridge Collapse

Engineers are dedicated to designing, innovating, and improving machines, buildings, and processes to ultimately better the lives and wellbeing of the public. A great majority of engineering accomplishments are executed without any issues; however, our human nature is to focus on the errors and downfalls rather than the successes of engineering. Most can recall the horrific I-35 bridge collapse in Minneapolis, but overlook the fact that there are hundreds of thousand bridges across the United States safely commuting citizens across bodies of water. In any case, an error in any engineering design could be the difference between life and death; only a handful of other professions share the same responsibility and pressure as engineers. To avoid as many mistakes as possible, all engineers follow a code of ethics, a set of guidelines to insure the product or building is safe for usage. While most of the errors are honest mistakes and accidents, there are occasions in which, for various reasons, decisions are made that threaten the

The disaster in Sampoong was not just a freak accident. It was the result of a series of events that stemmed from high demand, lack of resources and ignorance of basic ethics. Pressure and demand for contractors took a sharp trend upwards during the mid-1970s and late 1980s, fueled by a demand for greater development in South Korea. Safety codes were commonly overlooked in order to speed up construction. Building supplies were also in high demand, causing contractors to use cheaper, inferior materials. In fact, the collapse of the Sampoong Department Store was just one of many structural failures that occurred in Korea during this time. The owners in charge of the store forced engineers to deviate from the original plans creating a risk for errors to