Name: To Engineer is Human
ISBN: 9780679734161

Henry Petroski

Examines the process of engineering design and explains what can be learned by studying unsuccessful designs and the reasons for their failure

The Role of Failure in Successful Design

To Engineer is Human

Timeo Williams

The book entails the process of innovation in the realm of engineering and construction, most notably, bridges. 

Engineers operate through the scientific method. But as opposed to doctors, of whom their mistakes are buried within a grave, the engineer's work will be out in the open. So how do engineers innovate? 

Well, believe it or not, mostly through failures. 

The bridge created 50 years ago, still seems to hold up fine. The projected lifespan of the bridge and the factor of safety as a whole, predicted the bridge would stand for another 5 years, until a crack into the steel finally managed to internally erode the structure at its center of mass. 

At the same time, the city would like to create another bridge towards the northern outskirts of the city. 

Engineers have two choices: To stick with the existing design for the bridge created 50 years ago, or to innovate with the advanced materials today, but with a more aesthetically pleasing, yet riskier design, with an overall factor of safety slightly higher than prior, but still, untested in its physical form prior. 

Hence, the cost of innovation in this realm. Technology has allowed us to use electromagnetic rays against structures to find defects, without the collapse of the structure, but this has only done so much.

Jowanza Joseph

This is the first time I read a book that I felt bored by but kept learning something.

To Engineer is Human The Role of Failure in Successful Design

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