Research Guides: Design for "X": Safety

Statement of purpose

Safety in engineering and design

In addtion to the technical literature, as an engineer you will be responsibile for many areas and have to consider the effects of your actions on the environment, the economy, safety, sustaninabilty, general social welfare, political and public policy, and of course ethics.

Problem statement

This guide will provide you the tools necessary to complete your project -- the tabs above will link you to library and internet sources.

TED Talks

Peter Haas discusses implementing safer engineering practices for Haiti's new buildings.

Resource Links

Infrastructure reliability
The Annual Technical Report this year is focused on infrastructure reliability. Infrastructure constitutes those things that are apparent only in their absence. We take the infrastructure for granted, assuming it will always be there. We turn on our water facet, and drinkable water has always flowed out, for most of us, most of the time.
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DOI 10.1109/TR.2010.2052190
NASA Engineering and Safety Center
NESC’s technical evaluation and consultation products are delivered in the form of written reports that include solution-driven, preventative, and corrective recommendations.
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NASA Engineering and Safety Center's (NESC) mission is to perform value-added independent testing, analysis, and assessments of NASA's high-risk projects to ensure safety and mission success. The NESC engages proactively to help NASA avoid future problems.
NYT article on safety standards in China
Train Wreck in China Heightens Unease on Safety Standards
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The accident in eastern China has added to a national sense that safety may have been sacrificed in the country’s rush to modernize.
From Building Design to Prime Time: Forensic Engineering
Was it Colonel Mustard in the ballroom with the candle stick? Faulty wiring caused by an error in the manufacturing process? Or weak structural joints combined with subzero temperatures? These may seem like strikingly different situations, but all have one thing in common - forensic engineering.
OSHA -Occupational Safety and Health Administration
With the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, Congress created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance.
Learning from design failures
This book explains how to learn from past mistakes to avoid repeating them in the future: more easily said than done.
Lethal Arrogance: Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies
A level-headed evaluation of a host of potentially disruptive, dangerous, and in some cases lethal, technologies whose functioning depends on management by fallible, vulnerable human beings.
Engineering a safer world
Engineering a safer world : systems thinking applied to safety, a book by Nancy G. Leveson.