5 ms·

I wonder about the human effects of safety engineering. Say you require a 10x margin because you know builders will dilute it to 5x undetectably (say it’s under

I wonder about the human effects of safety engineering. Say you require a 10x margin because you know builders will dilute it to 5x undetectably (say it’s under layers of other material or something). Every time you attempt to compensate for the dilution of the standard in practice, they’ll undo it. But if you stop, they may continue increasing the dilution. There’s a normalization of deviance. And indeed most buildings will still stand because the standard is attempting to handle six nines so everyone involved building will probably ever build something that fails even if they diluted it to five nines. How do you encourage not doing that? Enforcement is one angle but are there others? Force the buyers to have insurance and then let the insurance company eat the risk assessment?

pdkl95 8y ago
> But if you stop, they may continue increasing the dilution. There’s a normalization of deviance. For a very good explanation of the mechanism that causes this kind of normalization of deviance, I recommend Richard Cook's outstanding talk "Resilience In Complex Adaptive Systems"[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60
manicdee 8y ago
Well one option is to hold designers, developers, builders and inspectors separately liable for the work and inspections they do for their entire lives, not limited to the period of solvency of the company they did the work for. We’ll see a return to very conservative designs though, with no 100 storey skyscrapers until they find people actually willing to pay for and perform good work. Until we are actually sending people bankrupt or jailing them, the corruption will worsen. There has to be some actual penalty for people trying to pass off shonky work.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  Does this, in practice, mean quality? The aeroplane industry doesn’t do this and they build safe craft.
  - ams6110 8y ago
    Aerospace industry has a deeply engrained culture of safety, and improving from failure. Construction industry has a history of building to bare minimum requirements, organized crime involvement, corruption, and passing the buck when anything goes wrong.
    - int_19h 8y ago
      I dunno, I'd say there's a very long tradition of safety in construction. "If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death." (Code of Hammurabi)
      - bostik 8y ago
        I look at that the other way. The need for effective regulation and proper enforcement come with a long tradition in construction business.
  - cc439 8y ago
    FAA certified mechanics and inspectors are held personally liable regardless of who they are working for and what they are working on.
avar 8y ago
This can also be handled by market forces. The people who expect to buy the apartments in a high-rise like this could collectively hire their own inspectors during construction, which would be answerable to them alone. The obvious way to collectivize this is through insurance. The problem stated by the linked Reddit commentator happens because the interests of everyone (architects, engineers, constructors and inspectors) currently align to de-prioritize safety. There's numerous reasons why that doesn't happen. One being that no individual apartments might have been sold before the construction is finished, but another reason could be that building codes have been good enough, so people think of that as a waste of money.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  But as a neighbour, I don’t want the building to fall on me. Part of the risk is externalized. Do I get to send an inspector too? That over privileges me because then I can stall projects by claiming an ostensible high threshold of risk.
  - avar 8y ago
    You couldn't stall a project by holding it to a higher standard than the building codes supposedly being violated (if the Reddit OP is to be believed).
    - scarejunba 8y ago
      Fair point. If the standards were inflated we'd have to bring them back down (which may be politically infeasible) but what you say sounds fine.
- starshadowx2 8y ago
  Privately hired inspectors is a terrible idea. That leads it to only the rich being able to afford to buy good inspectors leading to only the rich getting safe housing. Your whole comment can be condensed down to "I think poor people should have to live in dangerously built housing and die but it'll be their own fault for being poor." There needs to be much more regulation with much higher penalties for failures, and a dismantlement of the incentives of corruption.
samstave 8y ago
This is why there are phased inspection requirements along the buildout - so, when struct finishes/is in progress, an inspection is required to be passed prior to next phase. The real problem is in the purchasing of Chinese Steel, which supposedly passes muster, but clearly cannot. Hence, Bay Bridge. But - IMO - this is what was so fucking shady about taking all the steel from the towers on 9/11 and shipping/selling them off to china. Then we pull a PR Bullshit move of "incorporating" some of the steel in a fucking destroyer ship as some limp "Freedom Flex" The incorporation of tower steel into a war vessel was a fuck you from the people who profited off the event.
- scarejunba 8y ago
  As far as I remember, many of the steel failures on the Bay Bridge were US steel from Ohio through Dyson.
  - samstave 8y ago
    >The eastern span of the Bay Bridge was completed in 2013, six years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Critics say pressure to contain costs and meet deadlines led to poor management decisions, including the use of substandard ---- Chinese steel. ---- Other problems include cracks in the foundation and missing sections of deck drainage that allow rainwater to bleed inside the structure. https://www.courthousenews.com/engineer-unfazed-reports-subpar-steel-bay-bridge/ https://www.courthousenews.com/engineer-unfazed-reports-subp... --- There are other articles about it...
    - scarejunba 8y ago
      > Less than six months after the ill-fated batch of rods arrived in California in 2008, six high-strength rods that Dyson Corp. of Ohio shipped to rebuild the Hood Canal pontoon bridge — which connects the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas in the western part of the state — failed within days of being installed, according to a review recently made public by California bridge officials. Right but there are also articles about Dyson Steel: https://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Bridge-supplier-failed-to-reveal-rods-6037844.php https://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Bridge-supplier-fai... I chose my words carefully. I didn't intend to say that Chinese Steel is magic. Just that they're not the only culprit. If we'd picked up more Ohio steel we'd probably be in the same situation.
ggcdn 8y ago
Theres a whole field of structural reliability, and it's where they come up with load and resistance factors for design equations, and material testing requirements. I believe the targets are such that the probability of collapse of any structural component over it's lifetime is less than 10%, if it was designed for a utilization of 1.0. In reality, sizes are bumped up so the probability should be even less. In countries with strong regulatory requirements, you generally don't have to worry about builders 'diluting' because it is inspected by the design engineer and tested by 3rd party testing companies. It is in the engineers best interest to ensure compliance because they are legally liable in that regard. You can actually be suspended from practicing engineering if you do not comply with field review requirements. If our design calls for 35MPa concrete, samples are taken at the job site, tested, and reported back to the contractor and designer. If they come up short, it gets remediated.
- donavanm 8y ago
  The issue is that components dont build systems. Sure, maybe that get concrete that tests to 35Mpa. But was the embedded steel reinforcement coated properly, or will it rust? Were the balconies and doors sealed? Did anyone wash grout down the drains? And then imagine someone finds a problem, like “leaks” in a sibling comment. Do they revisit the strucutral issues that led to it? Or do they patch it up with a new 3rd party tradie and walk away? The idea being that your point inspection are finite. And the responsibility will be laundered behind a legal or organizational structure. Youre not going to reach anyone “responsible” for systemic issues. And as soon as you do that youll dampen all relevant investment activity. See the Washington State Condominium Act for a great example.
- stevekemp 8y ago
  And yet the UK continues to have mini-scandals : https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46454844 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46454844
  - ggcdn 8y ago
    Not sure about UK, but where I'm from this type of single family home construction discussed in the article doesn't normally require a structural engineer. In that case, you really are depending on the reputation of the builder.
xvilka 8y ago
Encouraging is easy - put in jail everyone who knew about failures in the process, from the lowest ranking engineer to the top-management, if they were aware. It will put hundreds of people behind the bars at first, but the rest will be more than happy to follow the safety rules instead.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  The process would also become a game of whack a mole with safety regulations, as everyone falls over themselves to point out every real or imagined flaw.

pdkl95 8y ago

> But if you stop, they may continue increasing the dilution. There’s a normalization of deviance. For a very good explanation of the mechanism that causes this kind of normalization of deviance, I recommend Richard Cook's outstanding talk "Resilience In Complex Adaptive Systems"[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLYEDpNu60

manicdee 8y ago

Well one option is to hold designers, developers, builders and inspectors separately liable for the work and inspections they do for their entire lives, not limited to the period of solvency of the company they did the work for. We’ll see a return to very conservative designs though, with no 100 storey skyscrapers until they find people actually willing to pay for and perform good work. Until we are actually sending people bankrupt or jailing them, the corruption will worsen. There has to be some actual penalty for people trying to pass off shonky work.

scarejunba 8y ago
Does this, in practice, mean quality? The aeroplane industry doesn’t do this and they build safe craft.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Aerospace industry has a deeply engrained culture of safety, and improving from failure. Construction industry has a history of building to bare minimum requirements, organized crime involvement, corruption, and passing the buck when anything goes wrong.
  - int_19h 8y ago
    I dunno, I'd say there's a very long tradition of safety in construction. "If a builder builds a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built falls in and kills its owner, then that builder shall be put to death." (Code of Hammurabi)
    - bostik 8y ago
      I look at that the other way. The need for effective regulation and proper enforcement come with a long tradition in construction business.
- cc439 8y ago
  FAA certified mechanics and inspectors are held personally liable regardless of who they are working for and what they are working on.

avar 8y ago

This can also be handled by market forces. The people who expect to buy the apartments in a high-rise like this could collectively hire their own inspectors during construction, which would be answerable to them alone. The obvious way to collectivize this is through insurance. The problem stated by the linked Reddit commentator happens because the interests of everyone (architects, engineers, constructors and inspectors) currently align to de-prioritize safety. There's numerous reasons why that doesn't happen. One being that no individual apartments might have been sold before the construction is finished, but another reason could be that building codes have been good enough, so people think of that as a waste of money.

scarejunba 8y ago
But as a neighbour, I don’t want the building to fall on me. Part of the risk is externalized. Do I get to send an inspector too? That over privileges me because then I can stall projects by claiming an ostensible high threshold of risk.
- avar 8y ago
  You couldn't stall a project by holding it to a higher standard than the building codes supposedly being violated (if the Reddit OP is to be believed).
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Fair point. If the standards were inflated we'd have to bring them back down (which may be politically infeasible) but what you say sounds fine.
starshadowx2 8y ago
Privately hired inspectors is a terrible idea. That leads it to only the rich being able to afford to buy good inspectors leading to only the rich getting safe housing. Your whole comment can be condensed down to "I think poor people should have to live in dangerously built housing and die but it'll be their own fault for being poor." There needs to be much more regulation with much higher penalties for failures, and a dismantlement of the incentives of corruption.

samstave 8y ago

This is why there are phased inspection requirements along the buildout - so, when struct finishes/is in progress, an inspection is required to be passed prior to next phase. The real problem is in the purchasing of Chinese Steel, which supposedly passes muster, but clearly cannot. Hence, Bay Bridge. But - IMO - this is what was so fucking shady about taking all the steel from the towers on 9/11 and shipping/selling them off to china. Then we pull a PR Bullshit move of "incorporating" some of the steel in a fucking destroyer ship as some limp "Freedom Flex" The incorporation of tower steel into a war vessel was a fuck you from the people who profited off the event.

scarejunba 8y ago
As far as I remember, many of the steel failures on the Bay Bridge were US steel from Ohio through Dyson.
- samstave 8y ago
  >The eastern span of the Bay Bridge was completed in 2013, six years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget. Critics say pressure to contain costs and meet deadlines led to poor management decisions, including the use of substandard ---- Chinese steel. ---- Other problems include cracks in the foundation and missing sections of deck drainage that allow rainwater to bleed inside the structure. https://www.courthousenews.com/engineer-unfazed-reports-subpar-steel-bay-bridge/ https://www.courthousenews.com/engineer-unfazed-reports-subp... --- There are other articles about it...
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    > Less than six months after the ill-fated batch of rods arrived in California in 2008, six high-strength rods that Dyson Corp. of Ohio shipped to rebuild the Hood Canal pontoon bridge — which connects the Kitsap and Olympic peninsulas in the western part of the state — failed within days of being installed, according to a review recently made public by California bridge officials. Right but there are also articles about Dyson Steel: https://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Bridge-supplier-failed-to-reveal-rods-6037844.php https://m.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Bridge-supplier-fai... I chose my words carefully. I didn't intend to say that Chinese Steel is magic. Just that they're not the only culprit. If we'd picked up more Ohio steel we'd probably be in the same situation.

ggcdn 8y ago

Theres a whole field of structural reliability, and it's where they come up with load and resistance factors for design equations, and material testing requirements. I believe the targets are such that the probability of collapse of any structural component over it's lifetime is less than 10%, if it was designed for a utilization of 1.0. In reality, sizes are bumped up so the probability should be even less. In countries with strong regulatory requirements, you generally don't have to worry about builders 'diluting' because it is inspected by the design engineer and tested by 3rd party testing companies. It is in the engineers best interest to ensure compliance because they are legally liable in that regard. You can actually be suspended from practicing engineering if you do not comply with field review requirements. If our design calls for 35MPa concrete, samples are taken at the job site, tested, and reported back to the contractor and designer. If they come up short, it gets remediated.

donavanm 8y ago
The issue is that components dont build systems. Sure, maybe that get concrete that tests to 35Mpa. But was the embedded steel reinforcement coated properly, or will it rust? Were the balconies and doors sealed? Did anyone wash grout down the drains? And then imagine someone finds a problem, like “leaks” in a sibling comment. Do they revisit the strucutral issues that led to it? Or do they patch it up with a new 3rd party tradie and walk away? The idea being that your point inspection are finite. And the responsibility will be laundered behind a legal or organizational structure. Youre not going to reach anyone “responsible” for systemic issues. And as soon as you do that youll dampen all relevant investment activity. See the Washington State Condominium Act for a great example.
stevekemp 8y ago
And yet the UK continues to have mini-scandals : https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46454844 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46454844
- ggcdn 8y ago
  Not sure about UK, but where I'm from this type of single family home construction discussed in the article doesn't normally require a structural engineer. In that case, you really are depending on the reputation of the builder.

xvilka 8y ago

Encouraging is easy - put in jail everyone who knew about failures in the process, from the lowest ranking engineer to the top-management, if they were aware. It will put hundreds of people behind the bars at first, but the rest will be more than happy to follow the safety rules instead.

Aeolun 8y ago
The process would also become a game of whack a mole with safety regulations, as everyone falls over themselves to point out every real or imagined flaw.