CV1408 WRITTEN REPORT
In February 1999 the Civil Engineering Company Balfour Beatty was fined £1.2m for the collapse of a tunnel at Heathrow airport, which put many lives at risk and caused the cancellation of hundreds of flights. The main issues to be addressed are what may have caused the collapse of the tunnel and what should have been done to prevent the collapse of the tunnel. A tunnel is an underground passage that could be built through a hill or under a building, road or river.
Tunnels can collapse due to number of reasons these could be due to negligence, minor errors within the management or a flaw in design. According to one particular source the collapse of the Heathrow tunnel was caused by a series of design and management errors, poor workmanship and quality control. The cause of the tunnel collapse was a chain of events according to the HSE. This included a myriad of unchecked substandard construction over a period of about three months, grout jacking that damaged the tunnel plus
…show more content…
According to Kevin Myers the tunnel disaster could have been prevented but because of economic reasons which was due to the new cultural mindset of the generation. (The Guardian, 2000). Another way it could have been prevented is if there were no short cuts taken in order to save money as many lives were at risk, therefore whatever is needed to ensure there are no issues should be carried out. Also whilst the project was being carried the Health & Safety Executives should have done their own respective inspections whilst the work was being carried to ensure certain standards were maintained. Also all the teams involved in the project should have had the full understanding of what was going on and off the
...afety should have inspected the building prior to issuing permits for further renovation, especially knowing this structure was going to be housing 124 residents. It seems that lack of knowledge from prior owners and lack of responsibility of city officials are responsible for this collapse and sadly, the loss of 9 brave men in the line of duty. The Boston Fire Department could have worked closer with the owner/ construction crew at the Hotel Vendome, and the deficiencies would have been found, and they would have known the instability they were walking into on June 17. At that point, firefighting operations would have more than likely been defensive. The firefighters did not conduct pre-incident planning which would have let them know they were going to face the construction barriers while attempting to lay hose, maneuver hose, and get the hose to a water source.
There have been suspicions surrounding how the towers collapsed into dust. Some say it was a “pancake” collapse. According to Engineers, a pancake collapse or progressive collapse is when the weight of all the floors above the collapsed zone bears down with pulverizing force on the highest intact floor and unable to absorb the energy, that floor would fail, transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to progress downward through the ...
This tragic accident was preventable by not only the flight crew, but maintenance and air traffic control personnel as well. On December 29, 1972, ninety-nine of the one hundred and seventy-six people onboard lost their lives needlessly. As is the case with most accidents, this one was certainly preventable. This accident is unique because of the different people that could have prevented it from happening. The NTSB determined that “the probable cause of this accident was the failure of the flightcrew.” This is true; the flight crew did fail, however, others share the responsibility for this accident. Equally responsible where maintenance personnel, an Air Traffic Controllers, the system, and a twenty cent light bulb. What continues is a discussion on, what happened, why it happened, what to do about it and what was done about it.
In conclusion, the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire was a tragedy that could have been avoided. It caused many innocent people to lose their lives. But, fortunately this caused the factory owners and the government to take more precautions with the factory.Because of this incident, the safety standards have changed significantly such as better firefighting equipment, and fire alarm. Now there are more exit doors which can only be used as an emergency and if you intend to go through that door, the fire alarm will turn
This turned out to be a serious safety hazard with the expected loss of life. But they labelled it as an Acceptable risk, instead of finding a solution.
My belief is that all agencies are responsible for this accident (Local, State, and Federal). The Mining Company, the Government and overall leadership is responsible for not protecting the mine workers’ safety. The Miners had concerns and voice out, begging for safe working conditions.
One is not having any lights in the building stairway. That caused a pileup of people and stuck in the dark. The main one is not having any fire extinguishers in the building.if they had one in the room, the could have put out the fire before it spread killing many lives. The exit ladder was not strong enough to support the weight of the workers causing it to break. That left people standing on the 6th floor not knowing what to do. Some people jumped. The impact was still hard enough to kill them. The main problem was the standpipe. The standpipe had not been connected to the sprinklers which left the fire to continue
The Lac-Megantic rail disaster tilts more to the Area One of the factor analytical model due to several reasons. This disaster was controllable due to the fact that the train was originally not repaired the way it should have been 8 months prior, the main focus was a short term patch up job on the train after the locomotive suffered engine failure. The locomotive was repaired using an epoxy like material that failed and led to a fire, this lead to the train being evacuated and finally set it on its rouge decent leading to its derailment. Although the train derailment was a horrible accident to the city of Nantes, Quebec it was not on the scale of being a global catastrophe, it is limited to a city wide emergency. The actions of individuals did play a role along with many other factors, but it cannot be said that it was any illegal action that led to this accident.
The Tacoma Narrows Bridge is perhaps the most notorious failure in the world of engineering. It collapsed on November 7, 1940 just months after its opening on July 1, 1940. It was designed by Leon Moisseiff and at its time it was the third largest suspension bridge in the world with a center span of over half a mile long. The bridge was very narrow and sleek giving it a look of grace, but this design made it very flexible in the wind. Nicknamed the "Galloping Gertie," because of its undulating behavior, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge drew the attention of motorists seeking a cheap thrill. Drivers felt that they were driving on a roller coaster, as they would disappear from sight in the trough of the wave. On the last day of the bridge's existence it gave fair warning that its destruction was eminent. Not only did it oscillate up and down, but twisted side to side in a cork screw motion. After hours of this violent motion with wind speeds reaching forty and fifty miles per hour, the bridge collapsed. With such a catastrophic failure, many people ask why such an apparently well thought out plan could have failed so badly?(This rhetorical question clearly sets up a position of inquiry-which iniates all research.) The reason for the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge is still controversial, but three theories reveal the basis of an engineering explanation. (Jason then directly asserts what he found to be a possible answer to his question.)
The construction site was in a downtown area of a large southeastern city, criss-crossed with city streets, utilities, and immediately adjacent to mid-rise and high rise buildings. Nearly all of the work was required to be constructed within temporary piling structures to limit settlement of adjacent structures. The construction contract called for seven phase releases of work areas and nine completion milestones, each milestone has its own liquidated damages penalty. The construction contract was valued at $10 million, and the duration was 545 calendar days. Following the completion of the work, the contractor filed a claim for $5.5 million and 1.1 million in interest. The authority subsequently denied the claim and the contractor, in accordance with the contract, filed an arbitration demand with the American Arbitration Association. Following the contractor’s issuance of the demand letter, the parties agreed to resolve the dispute through negotiation” (Ray,
What occurred in this case was that in a new build factory there had been inoperative flooring set and the claimants in this case lost money due to the flooring having to be reset again. In this case the claimants were in contract with the builders who laid the floor but decided not to sue them but to sue the sub contractors for their negligence because they were present when the builders and claimants were at meetings when discussing the flooring. Similarly, to the case Anns v Merton London Borough Council [1978] the court allowed the claimants to sue the defendants for their financial
They had to change and rebuild things after the sinkhole just like they did with Hurricane Sandy. After the Sinkhole some of the students had to move to Tangerine because there wasn’t enough space for everyone at Lake Windsor without the portables. Old Charley burns, the boss of the civil engineering company, was fired. He didn’t check and make sure that the places were safe to be building things on. He was bribed; he got vacations out of it. Since Charley Burns was fired, Paul’s dad replaced him. Paul’s dad told everybody that with him now the boss things were going to change. He wasn’t going to be bribed, and he was actually going to check and make sure that the places people were building things on were safe, and they weren’t building things on sinkholes.
Ryjevski M. 2008. Design and Construction underground structures and tunnels on Jumeirah palm island. Pg 1091 – 1097.
An invisible horizontal spinning effect is then created in the lower atmosphere by a change of wind direction and an increase of its speed with increasing height. This can be compared to a horizontal ‘tornado’. Then the air that rises tilts it, making the tunnel vertical.
As well as they are the only bodies that is really responsible for the construction safety effort. In any case if they not provide the safety attempts and some bad incident occurred then they are responsible for the critical case. The criteria are to be settled by the constructors. The most important and considerable thing in this regard is the health problems that can be suffered by the workers in some of the cases.