Filter by Source
Seasons
26. Learning from Failure: Hurricane Katrina
The flooding of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005,
was the costliest engineering failure in American history, and one of
the deadliest. Local and federal authorities had spent hundreds of
millions of dollars to build a comprehensive hurricane protection system
for the city; yet, this system failed catastrophically during Katrina.
Discover the economic development decisions over two centuries that
contributed to the disaster. And, learn how the disaster has stimulated
a more sustainable approach to flood protection.
25. Corporate Culture: The Boeing 737 MAX
What role should corporate culture play in the development of an
airplane? Discover what went wrong in the development of Boeing?EUR(TM)s 737
MAX and how the flawed design of the airplane?EUR(TM)s flight control system
led to 346 deaths in two separate crashes. Have we learned the
apparently difficult lesson that prioritizing the corporate bottom line
over technological excellence does not work?
24. Blowout: Deepwater Horizon
You don?EUR(TM)t have to know much about oil and gas to imagine the myriad of
technical difficulties that come with drilling an exploratory well miles
below a floating platform on the high seas. But after the presence of
oil is confirmed, then what? Explore the step-by-step sequence of
failures?EUR"flawed design decisions, careless oversights, deliberate
procedural shortcuts, and prioritizing profits over safety?EUR"that led to
the worst environmental disaster in US history.
23. Nuclear Meltdown: Chernobyl
No engineering failure in history had more world-changing consequences
than the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the
former Soviet Union. Discover the numerous design, organizational,
personnel, and bureaucratic flaws that resulted in the explosion of
Reactor 4 during a routine safety test?EUR"releasing 800 times more
radioactive material than the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
22. Decision-Making: The Challenger Disaster
Unlike most structural catastrophes, the 1986 Challenger disaster
occurred on live TV. Before long, the entire viewing audience became
familiar with the infamous O-rings. Explore behind the scenes to learn
about the personalities, conversations, and conflicting goals that led
to this catastrophic result. It will become clear that this
disaster?EUR"which killed seven people and threw the entire US space program
into crisis?EUR"was as much a failure of organizational decision-making as
it was an engineering failure.
21. Maintenance Malpractice: The Mianus River Bridge
You know that if you don?EUR(TM)t maintain your car, it can stop working?EUR"no
matter how good its design and construction. But we have often
overlooked that lesson when it comes to bridges. Follow the fascinating
case of the Mianus River Bridge and discover how lack of maintenance
caused its collapse in 1983, although the bridge had just been
inspected. What happened to those pin-and-hanger connections? And
exactly, whose fault was it?
20. Construction Engineering: Two Failed Lifts
Some engineering failures occur when the construction process goes badly
awry. Explore two such cases: one in which five people died trying to
implement an ad hoc solution to an unexpected construction challenge and
one in which a building collapse was caused by a flawed technology that
was intended solely to improve construction efficiency. Construction is
the world?EUR(TM)s most hazardous occupation, and engineering input can be as
important during construction as it is in design.
19. Water in Soil: Teton Dam and Niigata
Within days of filling its reservoir, the Teton Dam began to leak.
Bulldozers that were sent to plug the leaks were instead swallowed up by
a growing sinkhole. By the end of the day the dam had been breached and
the reservoir poured down the Teton valley in a tidal wave. Explore the
potentially catastrophic effects of water moving through soil under
pressure?EUR"whether in dams and levees or in the liquefaction caused by
earthquakes.
18. Soil and Settlement: The Leaning Tower of Pisa
What would the Tower of Pisa be if it weren?EUR(TM)t leaning? Not as
interesting, and certainly not as attractive to tourists. That was the
issue faced by the late-20th-century engineers who figured out what
caused the lean and devised a way to reduce the tower?EUR(TM)s angle of tilt.
Take a journey through the centuries to explore how various engineers
tried to stabilize the leaning tower, but only succeeded in making the
problem worse. Today, the Pisa tower has been saved; but what about the
more recent ?EURoeLeaning Tower of San Francisco?EUR??
17. Stress Corrosion: The Silver Bridge
On a cold night in 1967, the Silver Bridge in West Virginia collapsed
into the Ohio River, killing 46 people. For 39 years, the bridge had
been hailed as an engineering triumph with its cost-saving, innovative
structural concept. Follow this fascinating story of forensic
engineering as investigators eventually determined that the 1,965-foot
bridge failed because one eyebar in a suspension chain fractured. But
what caused this fracture?
16. Brittle Fracture: The Great Molasses Flood
In December 1915, United States Industrial Alcohol (USIA) built?EUR"without
any formal engineering design?EUR"a massive cylindrical steel tank along
Boston?EUR(TM)s North End waterfront to store incoming shipments of molasses.
When the tank ruptured three years later, 21 people died. USIA
immediately blamed the rupture on an anarchist bomb attack, but a
three-year legal battle pointed elsewhere. Explore the phenomena of
metal fatigue and brittle fracture and learn what role they played in
the Great Boston Molasses Flood.
15. House of Cards: Ronan Point
Modular, reinforced-concrete components can be manufactured in a
factory, transported to the job site, and then assembled into
multi-story buildings. But in one such 22 story development, a minor gas
explosion dislodged a load-bearing wall on which the entire high-rise
structural system depended, triggering a major collapse. Discover how
this could happen in a building that was in full compliance with the
governing building code.
14. Shear in Concrete: The FIU Pedestrian Bridge
The Florida International University Pedestrian Bridge was created with
long-span trusses made of reinforced concrete, using post-tensioning to
prevent cracking. The cracks that did show up during construction were
said to be ?EURoenot a safety issue?EUR??EUR"until a truss collapsed, killing six
people. Explore the series of mistakes that led to this tragedy,
including problems with the most sophisticated engineering tool of
all?EUR"human judgment.
13. Experiment in Iron: The Ashtabula Bridge
Handing lucrative contracts to family members is apparently nothing new,
but rarely has it led to such a public catastrophe as the 1876 Ashtabula
Bridge disaster. As you learn the fascinating history of entrepreneur
Amasa Stone?EUR"a story filled with ignorance and hubris, as he built an
iron bridge using a structural concept specifically developed for
wood?EUR"you?EUR(TM)ll follow the series of mistakes that led to America?EUR(TM)s worst
rail accident and worst bridge failure up to that time.
12. Stone Masonry: Beauvais Cathedral
On November 29, 1284, much of the renowned Cathedral of Saint-Pierre at
Beauvais collapsed without warning. Had this Gothic church simply
exceeded the inherent maximum height of a stone structural system, as
some historians have suggested? Watch fascinating demonstrations that
both explain the function of the medieval flying buttress and point to
the design flaws that most likely caused the collapse.
11. Dynamic Response: Boston?EUR(TM)s Plywood Palace
Boston?EUR(TM)s John Hancock Tower was still under construction when winds of
75 miles per hour struck on January 20, 1973. By morning, 65 exterior
glass panels?EUR"each weighing 500 pounds?EUR"lay shattered on the ground.
Around that same time, construction workers reported severe swaying of
the structure during winds. Were the two phenomena linked or was the
timing coincidental? Discover how tuned-mass damper technology became an
effective tool for controlling wind-induced (and earthquake-induced)
sway?EUR"and why all 10,344 windows had to be replaced.
10. Dynamic Response: London?EUR(TM)s Wobbly Bridge
On June 10, 2000, Londoners celebrated the technological promise of the
new millennium with the opening of a state-of-the-art pedestrian bridge
over the Thames River. Two days later, the Millennium Bridge was
vibrating so intensely that it was closed and did not reopen for more
than two years. Explore the phenomenon of synchronous lateral excitation
and learn how engineers were able to fix ?EURoeThe Wobbly Bridge?EUR? and develop
methods to prevent similar failures in other bridges.
9. Bridge Aerodynamics: Galloping Gertie
One of the most epic engineering failures in history was the collapse of
the Tacoma Narrows Bridge in 1940. Nicknamed ?EURoeGalloping Gertie,?EUR? the
bridge undulated so strongly that thrill-seekers came from all over just
to drive across it. Explore the inherent structural inefficiency of the
suspension bridge, and why this bridge failed spectacularly only four
months after its opening.
8. Structural Response: The Hyatt Regency Walkways
In 1978, a developer chose to build a hotel in Kansas City using a
management technique called fast-tracking, in which construction begins
before the design is complete. While the approach can work, it requires
careful communication between the owner, design professional, and
constructor. What can happen when each principal assumes that someone
else has designed a critical structural connection? Explore the series
of mistakes that led to the tragic collapse of two suspended walkways
and the deaths of 114 people.
7. Blast Loading: The Murrah Federal Building
On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh?EUR(TM)s bomb demolished almost half of the
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people.
Explore details of the building?EUR(TM)s design and specific ways in which
various structural elements responded to the blast. Is it possible that
a few modest changes to the steel reinforcement might have allowed the
building to survive with only localized damage? Learn how the
investigation of this tragedy has led to a fundamentally new engineering
design philosophy.
6. Vehicle Collisions: Land and Sea
When an unexpected squall limited visibility to near zero, the Summit
Venture freighter collided with Tampa?EUR(TM)s Sunshine Skyway Bridge on May 9,
1980, shearing off a reinforced concrete pier and toppling 1,300 feet of
the bridge into the bay. Was this an engineering failure? Or was it just
an accident? Discover how high-quality engineering design can account
for and minimize accidental catastrophe.
5. Earthquake Loading: The Cypress Structure
If you were watching Game 3 of the 1989 World Series, you saw the Loma
Prieta earthquake as it happened. While the earthquake caused many
fires, landslides, and structural failures, two thirds of the fatalities
were caused by the collapse of the Cypress Structure, a two-level
elevated highway. Explore the complex effects of earthquakes on
structures and learn the role resonance and sediment-induced
amplification played in this catastrophe.
4. Rainwater Loading: Kemper Arena
In 1976, the American Institute of Architects presented an Honor Award
to Helmut Jahn for his innovative design of the Kemper Arena in Kansas
City. Three years later, a 43,000-square-foot section of the roof
collapsed onto the floor during a storm. Follow the forensic engineers
as they painstakingly analyze the arena?EUR(TM)s innovative design, including
its roof drainage system, and identify four major factors that
contributed to the roof?EUR(TM)s collapse.
3. Wind Loading: The Tay Bridge
When the Tay Bridge in Scotland was completed in 1878, it became the
longest bridge in the world. Its collapse the following year, with a
loss of 75 lives, triggered a crisis of confidence among the British
traveling public. Discover the behind-the-scenes details of the bridge
design and construction, and how the failure of one single, simple
connection triggered a chain of events that brought down a 4,000-ton
structure.
2. Flawed Design Concept: The Dee Bridge
One spring evening in the mid-19th century, a three-span iron bridge
across England?EUR(TM)s River Dee collapsed just as a locomotive reached the
middle of the third span. Railroad technology was only just coming of
age, and this collapse was one of its most serious accidents to date.
Discover how this accident inquiry led to improved bridge safety
throughout the country?EUR"even though the exact collapse mechanism of this
bridge is still debated.
1. Learning from Failure: Three Vignettes
January 1, 2022
What does a 19th-century British railway disaster have in common with the partial collapse of a hotel in 20th-century Kansas City and the 21st-century destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans? All were engineering failures that resulted in important improvements in the engineering process. Discover the very human issues that contributed to poor engineering decisions in these three cases, with disastrous consequences.
Description
Where to Watch Epic Engineering Failures and the Lessons They Teach
Epic Engineering Failures and the Lessons They Teach is available for streaming on the website, both individual episodes and full seasons. You can also watch Epic Engineering Failures and the Lessons They Teach on demand at Apple TV Channels and Amazon Prime and Amazon.
-
Genres
-
Premiere DateJanuary 1, 2022
