Category: Engineering

This research study on was conducted in order to evaluate what parts of certain incidents or disasters were caused by engineering flaws. In July 19, 1985, a tailings dam located near the small village of Stava in Northern Italy collapsed, causing catastrophic consequences. In order to find out what engineering faults were made that led to the disastrous events, previous academic researches on the said historical incident were reviewed. The dam, built on the year 1961, was situated on a steep slope on the Stava valley, just a few hundred meters upstream the village of Stava. As mentioned above, the dam collapsed, unleashing enormous amounts of mining byproducts, claiming the lives of hundreds, as well as causing grave damage to everything that came on its path. After numerous studies, it was concluded that the collapse was caused by: the unsuitable and unstable location of the infrastructure, neglect of the maintenance of the dam, and as well as improper construction of some of its parts. These indeed prove that the disaster was caused by engineering mistakes. In the end, 10 people were convicted and ruled guilty, having to be responsible for the aforementioned mishaps. The Stava 1985 was also then founded, aiming to make public institutions and industrial operators aware of the importance of creating new strategies to prevent future disasters. This incident is also often referenced to and reviewed in order to not make the same mistakes again when making new tailings dams.

Stava Tailings Dam Disaster

Engineering is arguably one of the most important professions in this present day and age. With the continuous construction of various infrastructures and machineries all around the world, engineers work hard to help to ensure that these facilities are built properly and correctly. Proper work ethic would also help to protect the public’s health, safety, and welfare. However, it is inevitable that there would be times where negligence or malpractice in this industry would occur, often causing grave consequences. On July 17, 1985, a tailings dam situated upstream the small village of Stava, Northern Italy, had collapsed, forever changing the lives of many. This disaster caused hundreds of people to perish, the destruction of several infrastructures, as well as serious damage to nature and the economy of Italy. Following the incident, many questions were raised. Among them was the burning question, what caused this dam to collapse? Was the collapse caused by faulty engineering? If so, what were the flaws in the engineering design that led to this disaster? And lastly, how did this incident impact the practice of engineering?

To further examine the different areas of this incident, it is a must first clarify some concepts that are basic to this issue. First, what is an engineering disaster? An engineering disaster is a catastrophe or an accident caused by things such as the improper use of engineering techniques, the use of faulty materials, ignorance, or perhaps malpractice of the engineer their self. Another important concept to know in this paper is a tailings dam. A tailings dam is where the residual water and waste rock from mining goes into for storage and decanting.

To answer the aforementioned questions, a research involving many different sources were conducted. Numerous pieces of previous academic research were also thoroughly examined. Among these were the journals ‘The Stava Mudflow of 19 July 1985 (Northern Italy): A Disaster That Effective Regulation Might Have Prevented’ by F. Lunio and J. V. De Graff, ‘The Stava Valley Tailings Dams Disaster: A Reference Point for the Prevention of Severe Mine Incidents’ by Maurizio Boaretto, Graziano Lucchi, Giovanni Tosatti and Luca Zorzi, and the article ‘July 19, 1985: the Val di Stava Dam Collapse’ by David Bressan.

Analysis

Since the 16th century, mining activities have been carried out in the Stava valley, a quiet and picturesque location near Tesero (Trento), Northern Italy. In the early 20th century, mining for fluorite became popular because of the newfound interest of the chemical industry on the said element. Because of this, a new procedure was created in order to isolate and concentrate the fluorite more effectively, which utilizes a mixture of water, rocks, and foaming agents (Bressan, 2011). However, the downside is that this process produces large amounts of toxic and semi-liquid byproducts, which then has to be collected, stored, and dried. In 1961, In order to accommodate the large amounts of waste produced by this process, a tailings dam was constructed on a nearby slope for the storing and decanting of the byproducts (Bressan, 2011). It reached to a height of twenty-five meters, and a downstream slope of about thirty-two degrees. As the years went by, mining production significantly increased. To deal with this, a second dam was created, situated just upstream of the first one in 1969, reaching up to thirty-four meters high. Drainage pipes were also placed inside the basins in order to discharge the water outside by passing through the dams (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018).

On 19 July 1985, twenty-three minutes after noon, the upper basin of the dam collapsed. This caused all its contents to pour out on the lower dam, also triggering its collapse (Luino & Graff, 2012). Approximately 180,000 cubic meters of water, mud, and sand were released onto the village of Stava at a velocity approaching 90 km/h (Bressan, 2011). In a span of about four minutes, the mudflow ravaged through Stava and Tesero, before flowing into the Aviso River. With its enormous velocity and consistency, the mudflow was unfortunately able to destroy everything in its path. By the end of the calamity, it was reported that 268 people lost their lives and 100 people were injured, and the disaster is also said to have caused about 133 million euros worth of damage (Luino & Graff, 2012).

After the disaster has ensued, the government of Italy immediately sprang into action, trying to find the answer to the question, what had caused the dam to collapse? At first it was speculated that the collapse might have been caused by external forces, such as an earthquake or an explosion. However, after running several tests, it was proven that these were actually not the causes of the collapse. This means that the only reason left is an internal factor, a fault in the engineering of the basins. After much investigation, several problems were found in the dam itself. To start off, the construction of the tailings dam was planned poorly. Around the time of its construction, there was no proper urban planning in the Stava valley, so permission was easily granted for the said project. It was constructed on an area with an average inclination of 25%, that is quite unsuitable and unstable to support heavy infrastructures. Placing the dams on the top of the valley was highly appealing for the tourists aesthetically, especially with the addition of the scenic beauty of the place. Moreover, while the lower basin rested on natural grounds, it was found that the upper basin only rested on natural grounds on its sides, while its front embarkment partly rested on the sediments of the lower basin. It is also worth mentioning that the upper basin had an excessive slope of over eighty percent (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018). Of course, according to the laws of gravity, constructing a dam this large on that kind of position is not a very good idea, as it is a disaster waiting to happen. Second, during the past 3 years before the collapse, the dam was neglected and no efforts were made to maintain it. The hydrocyclone that separates the sand from silt was no longer moved periodically, and had caused the slow deterioration of the dam. Also, generally, during the whole life of the two tailings dams, the management was also said to be definitely inadequate, which is unknowingly one of the reasons why the dam has failed (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018). And lastly, a contributing factor to the disaster is the fact that some of the parts of the dam were not built correctly. For example, since the upper bank of the basin was not built correctly, drainage of the water became quite difficult. Also, since the front embarkment of the upper dam rested partially on the lower one, it slowly began to spread unsettled slime on the lower one. This made drainage more difficult, and also made the structure less stable. Drainage pipes were also installed incorrectly on the basin beds. A few months before the incident, Italy experienced heavier than usual snow and rainfall. The pressure from the excess water somehow was able bend parts of the pipes, which then caused leakages. According to reports, nothing was done to restore the pipes, therefore further disabling the excess water from draining (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018). In the end, 10 people were held accountable for the incident, convicted of multiple manslaughter and culpable catastrophe. The Stava 1985 Foundation was also created, aiming to make public institutions and industrial operators aware of the importance of creating new strategies to prevent future disasters. This incident is also often referenced to and reviewed in order to not make the same mistakes again when making new tailings dams (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018).

Conclusion

To conclude this research, the dam collapsed because of internal factors, such as the faulty engineering of the structure and as well as neglecting to maintain certain parts of the dam, deteriorating and disabling them from functioning well. The collapse was indeed caused by faulty engineering. The structure was built on unstable grounds, it was not maintained properly, and some parts of the dam were also built incorrectly. After this incident, The Stava 1985 Foundation was also created, aiming to make public institutions and industrial operators aware of the importance of creating new strategies to prevent future disasters. This incident is also often referenced to and reviewed in order to not make the same mistakes again when making new tailings dams (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018).

All in all, all questions were answered effectively, as numerous previous researches had made it evident that this disaster is manmade, mostly stemming from engineering mistakes. This incident further reinforces the importance of properly maintaining and building massive structures like these, as it can possibly cause disastrous consequences. Personally, I was moved when learning about this incident because it’s astonishing how a small mistake could result into a catastrophe. This helps me keep in mind that when I do become an engineer, I should do my work to the best of my abilities to ensure that everything is set correctly and efficiently.

References

1. Boaretto, M., Lucchi, G., Tosatti, G., & Zorzi, L. (2018). The Stava Valley Tailings Dams Disaster: A Reference Point for the Prevention of Severe Mine Incidents. Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering B, 7(6). doi: 10.17265/2162-5263/2018.06.005
2. Bressan, D. (2011, July 19). July 19, 1985: The Val di Stava Dam Collapse. Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/history-of-geology/httpblogsscientificamericancomhistory-of-geology20110719july-19-1985-the-val-di-stava-dam-collapse/
3. Luino, F., & Graff, J. V. D. (2012). The Stava Mudflow of 19 July 1985 (Northern Italy): A Disaster That Effective Regulation Might Have Prevented. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 12(4), 1029–1044. doi: 10.5194/nhess-12-1029-2012.

The recent Grenfell Tower fire of 2017 was a tragic engineering disaster resulting in the devastating loss of 72 lives. At 00:54 BST on the 14th of June 2017 a fire broke out in Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, West London. The fire rapidly grew from a fourth story apartment kitchen, with the source being found ‘in or around’ a malfunctioning fridge-freezer. It spread rapidly up the building’s exterior, bringing fire and smoke to all the residential floors, covering all 4 sides of the building. The fire continued to burn for around 60 hours before it was finally extinguished thanks to the combined efforts of more than 250 firefighters from the London Fire Brigade and 70 fire engines, as well as ambulances, paramedics, the Metropolitan Police and the Emergency Response Team. The fire was recorded as the UK’s deadliest building fire since 1988 and the UK’s worst residential fire since World War II.

This disaster highlighted the importance of building fire safety and shone a light on the major role that façades can play as a fire propagation vector. The severity of the Grenfell Tower fire and its tragic consequences are in large part due to the rapid propagation of the fire vertically over the east façade of the tower before spreading horizontally around the tower in both clockwise and anticlockwise directions, and the penetration of the fire through windows into apartments. This rapid propagation of the fire vertically and horizontally on the building’s exterior was due to the buildings cladding, the external insulation and the air gap between which enabled the stack effect, when warm air travels upward in a building.

The tower had recently been refurbished between 2012-2016 by Rydon Construction where they installed new cladding and insulating on the exterior of the building along with new windows. In this refurbishment they failed to add indoor sprinkler systems, fire alarms and a second staircase in the case of an emergency. The new windows were fixed on pre-frames composed of aluminum with some windows in the building able to be slightly opened into the building. There were many different window failure behaviors observed during the fire depending on their position, if they were tilted open or closed. These positions led to a rapid failure of the windows and penetration of fire from the outside to the inside of the tower. It can be difficult to determine whether the state of the windows is due to early failure or prolonged exposure to fire. The new external cladding and insulation of the tower is thought to have contributed to the rapid spread of the fire, with both of them failing all preliminary tests by the police. Documents obtained by the BBC suggest that the cladding that was fitted in the refurbishment was changed to a cheaper version as the originally proposed Zinc cladding was replaced with an aluminum cladding, which is less fire resistant. This saved them nearly $570,000. Cladding can create air pockets which in some cases can cause the stack effect resulting in flames being drawn up the air pocket if there are no fire barriers. It was stated by The Department for Communities and Local Government that aluminum panels with a polyethylene core should not be used as cladding on buildings over 18m high, with Grenfell Tower being 67.3m high this is a breach of safety regulations. This breach was later confirmed by engineering and manufacturing company Arconic with them stating that one of its products, Reynobond PE (polyethylene) – an aluminum composite material – was ‘used as one component in the overall cladding system’ of Grenfell Tower. It is believed if these materials were not installed in the refurbishment the fire of Grenfell Tower would not have spread the way that it did, and many lives would have been saved.

This refurbishment is a great example of an engineering project that has taken design for cost as a principle. Design for cost is the redesign of a project until the content of the project meets a given budget, this usually results in a reduced performance quality and even a reduce in safety. We can see that they have clearly sacrificed the quality and the safety of this building to meet a budget, by choosing unsafe and uncertified aluminum cladding instead of the originally proposed Zinc cladding. This is again displayed through the windows that were installed, using unreliable resources to fit a budget instead of putting safety first. This refurbishment also took design for manufacturing as a principle. Design for manufacturing deals with steps for improving manufacturing process to make a good product with reduced manufacturing cost. Clearly, they didn’t do this in a safe way as they didn’t consider material properties when choosing their parts and possibly even ruled out important safety features in the analysis stage. If this design process was completed correctly and safely it could have helped slow the spread of the fire and possibly saved lives.

I believe when refurbishing Grenfell Tower design for safety should have been their number 1 priority because the social impact this caused clearly outweighs the money saved by taking ‘short cuts’. Design for safety means that the product should be designed with occurrence of less illness, injuries, accidents or hazards with increased productivity, this also applies to the materials used. If this was their key aspect in refurbishing Grenfell Tower, they would have implemented safer cladding, safer windows, indoor sprinkler systems, fire alarms and included more exit staircases in the case of an emergency. But their choice to use unsafe materials to save money resulted in the death of 72 innocent people.

This disaster had a catastrophic impact on society. Zain Miah, the founder of Grenfell Muslim Response Unit stated that their project to support victims of Grenfell Tower ended in early 2019, 2 years after the incident, as many of the families they advocated for were now able to manage independently. Miah states “You don’t move on from Grenfell, but you can move forward”. This one statement demonstrates the impact this had on all that were involved and the time it has taken for them to heal.

In conclusion, this terrible disaster wouldn’t have occurred if safety was the number one priority instead of meeting a budget. This was a perfect example to demonstrate that using uncertified, unsafe and cheap materials to meet a budget will never outweigh safety. Rest easy to all of those 72 victims that lost their life due to poor engineering decisions.

References

1. BBC News. (2019). What Happened at Grenfell Tower? [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40301289 [Accessed On: 13/03/20]
2. Guillaume, R., Drean, V., Girardin, B., Benameur, F., Fateh, T. and Koohkan, M. (2019). Reconstruction of Grenfell Tower. [Online] Wiley Plus, https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy-f.deakin.edu.au/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/fam.2766 [ Accessed On: 25/03/20]
3. Wikipedia (2020). Grenfell Tower Fire. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire [Accessed On: 13/03/20]
4. NC State University. 2020. Stack Effect – Defined, [online] Available at: https://www.ces.ncsu.edu/ [Accessed 24/03/20].
5. BBC News (2020). How The Tragedy Unfolded At Grenfell Tower. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40272168 [Accessed 5/04/20].
6. Dean, E. (2020). Design For Cost. [online] Available at: http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~pscarbrough/dfca1stmods/dfc/dfcst.html [Accessed 12/04/20].
7. Sunny, S. (2020). Design For X (DFX). [online] Available at: https://sixsigmastudyguide.com/design-for-x-dfx/ [Accessed 12/04/20].
8. Kirkpatrick, D., Hakim, D. and Glanz, J. (2020). Why Grenfell Tower Burned. [online] NY Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/world/europe/grenfell-tower-london-fire.html [Accessed 28/04/20].
9. Miah, Z., Long, C., Masoud, L. and Renwick, D. (2020). Grenfell Tower, Two Years On. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/14/grenfell-tower-fire-two-years-firefighters [Accessed 5 May 2020].

This project is focused on

Methodology

For this project, I will be conducting secondary research rather than a combination of primary and secondary research. This was done considering the time that the Titanic sunk

Context

The Titanic was owned by the company White Star Line and constructed by Harland and Wolff. She was deemed ‘Unsinkable’ by many as there had never before been ships constructed in that size. Instead of constructing one ship, they decided on three. The Titanic, the Olympics, and the Britannic. Thus, making an already seemingly ambitious project even more so.

On the 10th of April 1912, the Titanic departed from Southampton, England, for New York City just before noon. Despite the delay in her construction due to the Olympic colliding with the HMS Hawke, workmen were diverted from the Titanic to the Olympics (Flekins, Leighly, and Jankovic, 1998).

On a moonless night, 14 April 1912, the iceberg that struck the Titanic was spotted at 11:40 p.m. Green Land Time and sank completely at around 2:20 a.m. 15 April, more than 1500 lives were lost (Flekins, Leighly and Jankovic, 1998). Instead of taking around 2 to 3 days to sink as was expected of that time, it sunk in over 2 hours. This is because damage was made to the hull, which consequently caused the compartments to fill up one after the other, even though they were watertight, they were only so in a horizontal direction (Bassett, 2000). Out of around 2 200 people on the Titanic, there were only 711-713 survivors (Symanzik, Friendly, and Onder, 2018). Most who survived the sinking died from exposure to the water, possibly within 40 minutes (Hall, 1986). There were only 2207 confirmed persons on board however, there was conjecture that there were stowaways (Frey, Savage, and Torgler, 2011).

Speed

The RMS Titanic’s speed increased gradually per day. This was done even though the captain had been informed of the ice field by other vessels. However, he may not have slowed his speed due to following the standard procedure of the time (Kelly, 2013). Captain Smith may have not reduced the speed as the night was clear with good visibility however, he was subtly pressured to increase the speed by the owner, Ismay, to set a new speed record (Battles, 2001).

Training

It was shown that there was a lack of staff training on the standard evacuation procedure as there had been no official drill along with only 705 lives saved, which is far below the capacity of the lifeboats (Kelly, 2013). The lookout Fred Fleet spotted the Iceberg a quarter mile away but should have seen it half a mile away but could not locate the binoculars that were found eighty years later (Battles, 2001).

Icebergs

Initially, a French liner, La Touraine, sent a warning on the 12th of April 1912 of the ice in the steamship lanes. However, it was not uncommon to find icebergs in the lanes at that time of year. As time passed, the warnings became more frequent and accurate. The icefield was estimated to be around 20 km wide and 120 km long in a northeast-southwest direction (Felkins, Leighly, and Jankovic, 1998). The Titanic continued at a speed of 21.5 knots and was twice diverted to attempt to avoid the icebergs.

In 1912, 1038 icebergs were observed which was not out of the ordinary but, the size of the iceberg that collided with the iceberg was. The iceberg was south of N°46, it was rare for an iceberg of that size to be that far south at that time of year in that location. Moreover, there was a greater number of icebergs reported that year than there normally would have been but, the weather conditions drove them South earlier than usual (Bigg and Billings, 2014).

Furthermore, the reason why the Titanic received most but not all of the messages of the iceberg warnings was that Wireless Officer Phillips was sending and receiving messages on the one radio channel available. He was told to place priority on sending out personal messages however, he did receive and pass on some iceberg warnings but, asked the senders to stop transmitting them (Battles, 2001).

Lifeboats

The RMS Titanic had complied with the current marine laws of the time set out by the British Board of Trade. Which stated that a ship with over 10,000 metric tonnes had to have a minimum of 16 lifeboats. Even though the Titanic complied with this law, it was 40,000 metric tonnes (Kelly, 2013). There were only enough lifeboats for half of the people on board and even then, several were launched half and three-quarters full. When the Titanic first collided with the iceberg, many passengers did not get into the lifeboats as they believed that it was unsinkable, they only started boarding when they saw true trouble (Dietz, 1998).

The Titanic only carried 20 lifeboats, which was enough for around 52% of the passengers, 1178 people. Another reason for the passengers’ slow response to getting onto the lifeboats was that there was this disbelief that they were either in disbelief that they were in danger, reluctant to be separated from their husbands and the apparent presence of a ship nearby, meaning that some had decided to wait (Hall, 1986).

Design Flaws

Even though the Titanic, along with her sister ships, were revolutionary in terms of their size and how they were built, how the compartments were constructed caused the ship to inadvertently sink faster.

The water compartments were watertight but, only so in the horizontal direction. Meaning that, as one compartment filled up, it would spill over to the next (Kelly, 2013). Six of the sixteen major compartments had flooded on the starboard side of the ship’s bow. As the compartments were only watertight in a horizontal direction and the walls only a few feet above the water line, the water coming into the starboard side of the bow caused the ship to tilt. This, led to the propellers lifting out of the water at around 2:00 a.m. and later causing the stern to ascend out of the water, causing the bow to rip loose (Felkins, Leighly, and Jankovic, 1998).

Composition

When the iceberg hit the Titanic, damage occurred when the hull seams parted instead of an iceberg-induced gash. This was caused by the failure of some of the rivets and the type of steel used to construct the Titanic at the time experienced brittle fracture. When a fraction of the rivets failed due to the collision with the iceberg, they would then transfer the load to the others leading the stress levels to a failing point (Kelly, 2013).

On 15 August 1996, steel from the hull was brought to the University of Missouri-Rolla for analysis. They concluded that the steel was not made by the Bessemer process due to the very low nitrogen content but with an open-hearth process. Where two-thirds of the furnaces had acid linings that caused the high Sulphur and Phosphorus content in the steel. As a result of this combination of the high amounts of Sulphur, phosphorus, and Oxygen, low temperatures would embrittle the steel even though the combination is low by today’s standards (Felkins, Leighly, and Jankovic, 1998).

To test how brittle the steel of the hull was, they conducted Charpy impact tests. It is a method to determine the energy absorbed by a material when it fractures and does so with the use of a swinging pendulum at the material at a range of temperatures. In this case, the temperature range was -55°C to 179°C. When the Titanic was sinking, the water temperature was -2°C. Even though the Titanic was constructed with the best plain carbon ship plate available at the time, it would not be acceptable today. This is because, when comparing the hull steel and ASTM A36 steel, it was shown that modern steel has a higher Manganese and lower Sulphur content which would reduce the ductile-brittle transition temperature a lot. The brittle fracture was caused by those low temperatures (Felkins, Leighly, and Jankovic, 1998). Moreover, the brittle steel is more likely to be relevant to the breakup of the ship and not the collision with the iceberg (Foecke, 1998).

Furthermore, another analysis was conducted by the College of Engineering University of Wisconsin and found that the brittleness of the steel was increased by disrupting its grain structure with the high Sulphur content. When the Charpy test was conducted, the modern steel was struck with a large force. The result was that the sample bent without breaking into pieces as it was ductile. However, under the same impact loading, the steel of the Titanic was extremely brittle and broke into two pieces along with little deformation (Gannon, 1995). Furthermore, the method of testing the steel, Charpy impact testing, was only developed a few years before the construction of the Titanic. Meaning that it would not make sense for the designers to use this testing method as it was relatively new. After analyzing the rivets, it was found that they either elongated or snapped. Thus, providing another inlet for water to flood into the ship as the iceberg tore through the seams, resulting in them being subjected to incredible forces (Bassett, 2000).

Research shows that the company that was responsible for the construction of the Titanic, Harland and Wolff, struggled to find enough good rivets and riveters as the Titanic alone required three million rivets. Due to the ambitiousness of this project, the company had to search beyond their usual suppliers such as small forges that generally had less skill. As a consequence of this, the rivets had high concentrations of slag resulting in brittle fracture and being prone to fracture. Furthermore, after searching in the company’s archives, it was found that the shortages of skilled riveters were discussed at almost every meeting (Broad, 2008).

Steel rivets were only used on the central hull as they expected most of the stresses to be there, with iron rivets for the stern and bow. However, the iceberg struck the bow and the damage caused by it was close to where the rivets transitioned from iron to steel. This may also be a factor in the breakup of the ship. There is also evidence of complacency by the British Board of Trade found by Dr. McCarty. It showed that they stopped testing iron for shipbuilding in 1901 as they saw iron metallurgy as a mature field, unlike that of steel (Broad, 2008).

Psychology

The main reason why more women and children survived than men was due to the policy that was followed at that time and on the Titanic, women and children first. However, some of the crew members were armed to avoid incidents when people started to realize that they were in danger (Hall, 1986). Those who traveled alone had a better chance than those in groups as they could focus more on their self-interest however, in some cases those in groups had a higher chance of survival due to social support. Moreover, it was the duty of the 886 men and women in the crew to help save the passengers and only to abandon the ship when the task had been fulfilled. However, the crew had a 24% higher chance of surviving than the third class which proves that self-interests tend to dominate in life-and-death conditions. The key social norm of saving women and children first is still done today in evacuation procedures under the Geneva Convention (Frey, Savage, and Torgler, 2011).

Physical strength may have been a factor that increased survival however, adult males were less likely to survive than women and children. When comparing the ages of the adult males, those 55 years old and above were less likely to survive (Frey, Savage, and Torgler, 2011).

This difference was possibly due to the layout of the ship and not the lower classes being deliberately excluded (Hall, 1986). It is shown that first class had a better chance of survival as they had better access to the information about the danger and lifeboats were located closer to the first-class cabins. Third-class had the lowest chance of survival as they had little to no idea where the lifeboats were located and safety drills for passengers were only implemented after the Titanic. It was also more likely for British passengers to die as a result of their cultural norms at that time along with their belief that the Titanic was unsinkable (Frey, Savage, and Torgler, 2011).

Those who did not understand English could not understand what was required of them thus, the lower chance of survival (Hall, 1986). Time influences how people react in life-and-death situations. This is shown when you compare how people reacted to the Titanic and the Lusitania. The Titanic sunk in less than three hours and the people on board were calm at first and the lifeboats were loaded fuller than they were near the end due to the panic. However, when you consider the Lusitania, how people reacted was very different. She was torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915 and sunk in twenty minutes. Instead of helping people calmly, the passengers panicked, thus causing more deaths (Frey, Savage, and Torgler, 2011).

Conclusion

She would have had a career of around 20 years, however, it was ultimately outdated legislation that led to the sinking of the Titanic as it had complied with all of the regulations of the British Board of Trade, were it not for this maritime disaster, many more lives would have been lost, the International Ice Patrol (IIP) was formed and the number of collisions was significantly reduced, along with laws such as having a lifeboat capacity for all of the passengers on board. The issue of legislation not keeping up with the increasing changes in technology is still a problem today.

This research study on was conducted in order to evaluate what parts of certain incidents or disasters were caused by engineering flaws. In July 19, 1985, a tailings dam located near the small village of Stava in Northern Italy collapsed, causing catastrophic consequences. In order to find out what engineering faults were made that led to the disastrous events, previous academic researches on the said historical incident were reviewed. The dam, built on the year 1961, was situated on a steep slope on the Stava valley, just a few hundred meters upstream the village of Stava. As mentioned above, the dam collapsed, unleashing enormous amounts of mining byproducts, claiming the lives of hundreds, as well as causing grave damage to everything that came on its path. After numerous studies, it was concluded that the collapse was caused by: the unsuitable and unstable location of the infrastructure, neglect of the maintenance of the dam, and as well as improper construction of some of its parts. These indeed prove that the disaster was caused by engineering mistakes. In the end, 10 people were convicted and ruled guilty, having to be responsible for the aforementioned mishaps. The Stava 1985 was also then founded, aiming to make public institutions and industrial operators aware of the importance of creating new strategies to prevent future disasters. This incident is also often referenced to and reviewed in order to not make the same mistakes again when making new tailings dams.

Stava Tailings Dam Disaster

Engineering is arguably one of the most important professions in this present day and age. With the continuous construction of various infrastructures and machineries all around the world, engineers work hard to help to ensure that these facilities are built properly and correctly. Proper work ethic would also help to protect the public’s health, safety, and welfare. However, it is inevitable that there would be times where negligence or malpractice in this industry would occur, often causing grave consequences. On July 17, 1985, a tailings dam situated upstream the small village of Stava, Northern Italy, had collapsed, forever changing the lives of many. This disaster caused hundreds of people to perish, the destruction of several infrastructures, as well as serious damage to nature and the economy of Italy. Following the incident, many questions were raised. Among them was the burning question, what caused this dam to collapse? Was the collapse caused by faulty engineering? If so, what were the flaws in the engineering design that led to this disaster? And lastly, how did this incident impact the practice of engineering?

To further examine the different areas of this incident, it is a must first clarify some concepts that are basic to this issue. First, what is an engineering disaster? An engineering disaster is a catastrophe or an accident caused by things such as the improper use of engineering techniques, the use of faulty materials, ignorance, or perhaps malpractice of the engineer their self. Another important concept to know in this paper is a tailings dam. A tailings dam is where the residual water and waste rock from mining goes into for storage and decanting.

To answer the aforementioned questions, a research involving many different sources were conducted. Numerous pieces of previous academic research were also thoroughly examined. Among these were the journals ‘The Stava Mudflow of 19 July 1985 (Northern Italy): A Disaster That Effective Regulation Might Have Prevented’ by F. Lunio and J. V. De Graff, ‘The Stava Valley Tailings Dams Disaster: A Reference Point for the Prevention of Severe Mine Incidents’ by Maurizio Boaretto, Graziano Lucchi, Giovanni Tosatti and Luca Zorzi, and the article ‘July 19, 1985: the Val di Stava Dam Collapse’ by David Bressan.

Analysis

Since the 16th century, mining activities have been carried out in the Stava valley, a quiet and picturesque location near Tesero (Trento), Northern Italy. In the early 20th century, mining for fluorite became popular because of the newfound interest of the chemical industry on the said element. Because of this, a new procedure was created in order to isolate and concentrate the fluorite more effectively, which utilizes a mixture of water, rocks, and foaming agents (Bressan, 2011). However, the downside is that this process produces large amounts of toxic and semi-liquid byproducts, which then has to be collected, stored, and dried. In 1961, In order to accommodate the large amounts of waste produced by this process, a tailings dam was constructed on a nearby slope for the storing and decanting of the byproducts (Bressan, 2011). It reached to a height of twenty-five meters, and a downstream slope of about thirty-two degrees. As the years went by, mining production significantly increased. To deal with this, a second dam was created, situated just upstream of the first one in 1969, reaching up to thirty-four meters high. Drainage pipes were also placed inside the basins in order to discharge the water outside by passing through the dams (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018).

On 19 July 1985, twenty-three minutes after noon, the upper basin of the dam collapsed. This caused all its contents to pour out on the lower dam, also triggering its collapse (Luino & Graff, 2012). Approximately 180,000 cubic meters of water, mud, and sand were released onto the village of Stava at a velocity approaching 90 km/h (Bressan, 2011). In a span of about four minutes, the mudflow ravaged through Stava and Tesero, before flowing into the Aviso River. With its enormous velocity and consistency, the mudflow was unfortunately able to destroy everything in its path. By the end of the calamity, it was reported that 268 people lost their lives and 100 people were injured, and the disaster is also said to have caused about 133 million euros worth of damage (Luino & Graff, 2012).

After the disaster has ensued, the government of Italy immediately sprang into action, trying to find the answer to the question, what had caused the dam to collapse? At first it was speculated that the collapse might have been caused by external forces, such as an earthquake or an explosion. However, after running several tests, it was proven that these were actually not the causes of the collapse. This means that the only reason left is an internal factor, a fault in the engineering of the basins. After much investigation, several problems were found in the dam itself. To start off, the construction of the tailings dam was planned poorly. Around the time of its construction, there was no proper urban planning in the Stava valley, so permission was easily granted for the said project. It was constructed on an area with an average inclination of 25%, that is quite unsuitable and unstable to support heavy infrastructures. Placing the dams on the top of the valley was highly appealing for the tourists aesthetically, especially with the addition of the scenic beauty of the place. Moreover, while the lower basin rested on natural grounds, it was found that the upper basin only rested on natural grounds on its sides, while its front embarkment partly rested on the sediments of the lower basin. It is also worth mentioning that the upper basin had an excessive slope of over eighty percent (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018). Of course, according to the laws of gravity, constructing a dam this large on that kind of position is not a very good idea, as it is a disaster waiting to happen. Second, during the past 3 years before the collapse, the dam was neglected and no efforts were made to maintain it. The hydrocyclone that separates the sand from silt was no longer moved periodically, and had caused the slow deterioration of the dam. Also, generally, during the whole life of the two tailings dams, the management was also said to be definitely inadequate, which is unknowingly one of the reasons why the dam has failed (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018). And lastly, a contributing factor to the disaster is the fact that some of the parts of the dam were not built correctly. For example, since the upper bank of the basin was not built correctly, drainage of the water became quite difficult. Also, since the front embarkment of the upper dam rested partially on the lower one, it slowly began to spread unsettled slime on the lower one. This made drainage more difficult, and also made the structure less stable. Drainage pipes were also installed incorrectly on the basin beds. A few months before the incident, Italy experienced heavier than usual snow and rainfall. The pressure from the excess water somehow was able bend parts of the pipes, which then caused leakages. According to reports, nothing was done to restore the pipes, therefore further disabling the excess water from draining (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018). In the end, 10 people were held accountable for the incident, convicted of multiple manslaughter and culpable catastrophe. The Stava 1985 Foundation was also created, aiming to make public institutions and industrial operators aware of the importance of creating new strategies to prevent future disasters. This incident is also often referenced to and reviewed in order to not make the same mistakes again when making new tailings dams (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018).

Conclusion

To conclude this research, the dam collapsed because of internal factors, such as the faulty engineering of the structure and as well as neglecting to maintain certain parts of the dam, deteriorating and disabling them from functioning well. The collapse was indeed caused by faulty engineering. The structure was built on unstable grounds, it was not maintained properly, and some parts of the dam were also built incorrectly. After this incident, The Stava 1985 Foundation was also created, aiming to make public institutions and industrial operators aware of the importance of creating new strategies to prevent future disasters. This incident is also often referenced to and reviewed in order to not make the same mistakes again when making new tailings dams (Boaretto, Lucchi, Tosatti, & Zorzi, 2018).

All in all, all questions were answered effectively, as numerous previous researches had made it evident that this disaster is manmade, mostly stemming from engineering mistakes. This incident further reinforces the importance of properly maintaining and building massive structures like these, as it can possibly cause disastrous consequences. Personally, I was moved when learning about this incident because it’s astonishing how a small mistake could result into a catastrophe. This helps me keep in mind that when I do become an engineer, I should do my work to the best of my abilities to ensure that everything is set correctly and efficiently.

References

1. Boaretto, M., Lucchi, G., Tosatti, G., & Zorzi, L. (2018). The Stava Valley Tailings Dams Disaster: A Reference Point for the Prevention of Severe Mine Incidents. Journal of Environmental Science and Engineering B, 7(6). doi: 10.17265/2162-5263/2018.06.005
2. Bressan, D. (2011, July 19). July 19, 1985: The Val di Stava Dam Collapse. Retrieved from https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/history-of-geology/httpblogsscientificamericancomhistory-of-geology20110719july-19-1985-the-val-di-stava-dam-collapse/
3. Luino, F., & Graff, J. V. D. (2012). The Stava Mudflow of 19 July 1985 (Northern Italy): A Disaster That Effective Regulation Might Have Prevented. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences, 12(4), 1029–1044. doi: 10.5194/nhess-12-1029-2012.

The recent Grenfell Tower fire of 2017 was a tragic engineering disaster resulting in the devastating loss of 72 lives. At 00:54 BST on the 14th of June 2017 a fire broke out in Grenfell Tower in North Kensington, West London. The fire rapidly grew from a fourth story apartment kitchen, with the source being found ‘in or around’ a malfunctioning fridge-freezer. It spread rapidly up the building’s exterior, bringing fire and smoke to all the residential floors, covering all 4 sides of the building. The fire continued to burn for around 60 hours before it was finally extinguished thanks to the combined efforts of more than 250 firefighters from the London Fire Brigade and 70 fire engines, as well as ambulances, paramedics, the Metropolitan Police and the Emergency Response Team. The fire was recorded as the UK’s deadliest building fire since 1988 and the UK’s worst residential fire since World War II.

This disaster highlighted the importance of building fire safety and shone a light on the major role that façades can play as a fire propagation vector. The severity of the Grenfell Tower fire and its tragic consequences are in large part due to the rapid propagation of the fire vertically over the east façade of the tower before spreading horizontally around the tower in both clockwise and anticlockwise directions, and the penetration of the fire through windows into apartments. This rapid propagation of the fire vertically and horizontally on the building’s exterior was due to the buildings cladding, the external insulation and the air gap between which enabled the stack effect, when warm air travels upward in a building.

The tower had recently been refurbished between 2012-2016 by Rydon Construction where they installed new cladding and insulating on the exterior of the building along with new windows. In this refurbishment they failed to add indoor sprinkler systems, fire alarms and a second staircase in the case of an emergency. The new windows were fixed on pre-frames composed of aluminum with some windows in the building able to be slightly opened into the building. There were many different window failure behaviors observed during the fire depending on their position, if they were tilted open or closed. These positions led to a rapid failure of the windows and penetration of fire from the outside to the inside of the tower. It can be difficult to determine whether the state of the windows is due to early failure or prolonged exposure to fire. The new external cladding and insulation of the tower is thought to have contributed to the rapid spread of the fire, with both of them failing all preliminary tests by the police. Documents obtained by the BBC suggest that the cladding that was fitted in the refurbishment was changed to a cheaper version as the originally proposed Zinc cladding was replaced with an aluminum cladding, which is less fire resistant. This saved them nearly $570,000. Cladding can create air pockets which in some cases can cause the stack effect resulting in flames being drawn up the air pocket if there are no fire barriers. It was stated by The Department for Communities and Local Government that aluminum panels with a polyethylene core should not be used as cladding on buildings over 18m high, with Grenfell Tower being 67.3m high this is a breach of safety regulations. This breach was later confirmed by engineering and manufacturing company Arconic with them stating that one of its products, Reynobond PE (polyethylene) – an aluminum composite material – was ‘used as one component in the overall cladding system’ of Grenfell Tower. It is believed if these materials were not installed in the refurbishment the fire of Grenfell Tower would not have spread the way that it did, and many lives would have been saved.

This refurbishment is a great example of an engineering project that has taken design for cost as a principle. Design for cost is the redesign of a project until the content of the project meets a given budget, this usually results in a reduced performance quality and even a reduce in safety. We can see that they have clearly sacrificed the quality and the safety of this building to meet a budget, by choosing unsafe and uncertified aluminum cladding instead of the originally proposed Zinc cladding. This is again displayed through the windows that were installed, using unreliable resources to fit a budget instead of putting safety first. This refurbishment also took design for manufacturing as a principle. Design for manufacturing deals with steps for improving manufacturing process to make a good product with reduced manufacturing cost. Clearly, they didn’t do this in a safe way as they didn’t consider material properties when choosing their parts and possibly even ruled out important safety features in the analysis stage. If this design process was completed correctly and safely it could have helped slow the spread of the fire and possibly saved lives.

I believe when refurbishing Grenfell Tower design for safety should have been their number 1 priority because the social impact this caused clearly outweighs the money saved by taking ‘short cuts’. Design for safety means that the product should be designed with occurrence of less illness, injuries, accidents or hazards with increased productivity, this also applies to the materials used. If this was their key aspect in refurbishing Grenfell Tower, they would have implemented safer cladding, safer windows, indoor sprinkler systems, fire alarms and included more exit staircases in the case of an emergency. But their choice to use unsafe materials to save money resulted in the death of 72 innocent people.

This disaster had a catastrophic impact on society. Zain Miah, the founder of Grenfell Muslim Response Unit stated that their project to support victims of Grenfell Tower ended in early 2019, 2 years after the incident, as many of the families they advocated for were now able to manage independently. Miah states “You don’t move on from Grenfell, but you can move forward”. This one statement demonstrates the impact this had on all that were involved and the time it has taken for them to heal.

In conclusion, this terrible disaster wouldn’t have occurred if safety was the number one priority instead of meeting a budget. This was a perfect example to demonstrate that using uncertified, unsafe and cheap materials to meet a budget will never outweigh safety. Rest easy to all of those 72 victims that lost their life due to poor engineering decisions.

References

1. BBC News. (2019). What Happened at Grenfell Tower? [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40301289 [Accessed On: 13/03/20]
2. Guillaume, R., Drean, V., Girardin, B., Benameur, F., Fateh, T. and Koohkan, M. (2019). Reconstruction of Grenfell Tower. [Online] Wiley Plus, https://onlinelibrary-wiley-com.ezproxy-f.deakin.edu.au/doi/pdfdirect/10.1002/fam.2766 [ Accessed On: 25/03/20]
3. Wikipedia (2020). Grenfell Tower Fire. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire [Accessed On: 13/03/20]
4. NC State University. 2020. Stack Effect – Defined, [online] Available at: https://www.ces.ncsu.edu/ [Accessed 24/03/20].
5. BBC News (2020). How The Tragedy Unfolded At Grenfell Tower. [online] Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40272168 [Accessed 5/04/20].
6. Dean, E. (2020). Design For Cost. [online] Available at: http://spartan.ac.brocku.ca/~pscarbrough/dfca1stmods/dfc/dfcst.html [Accessed 12/04/20].
7. Sunny, S. (2020). Design For X (DFX). [online] Available at: https://sixsigmastudyguide.com/design-for-x-dfx/ [Accessed 12/04/20].
8. Kirkpatrick, D., Hakim, D. and Glanz, J. (2020). Why Grenfell Tower Burned. [online] NY Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/24/world/europe/grenfell-tower-london-fire.html [Accessed 28/04/20].
9. Miah, Z., Long, C., Masoud, L. and Renwick, D. (2020). Grenfell Tower, Two Years On. [online] The Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/14/grenfell-tower-fire-two-years-firefighters [Accessed 5 May 2020].

The scope of this paper discusses and reviews the research areas and subjects covered in engineering management research and how it applies to technical skills in the larger context of answering the leadership and management questions which face the technical organizations today. There are various subject matters under the umbrella of engineering management. They are as follows: 1) leadership and organization management, 2) operations, operations research, and supply chain, 3) management of technology, 4) new product development and product engineering. 5) systems engineering, 6) industrial engineering, 7) management science, 8) engineering design management.

As we focus on the category of leadership and management, it can be said that leadership is more directed to what should be done whereas management is focused on how it needs to be accomplished. It is mentioned in the article by Kern (2002) that leadership can be defined as the ability to cope with changes and realize a sense of direction. The subject of research and development has been grouped in the leadership category as it is a subject which is fundamentally fixated on identifying new products or technologies and, therefore, identified with change.

Building leadership improvement projects have turned out to be progressively prominent as there is a perceived interest for engineers who are more balanced and have leadership qualities. A survey of the writing identified with these projects demonstrate that they plan to give proficient aptitudes, for example, correspondence, development, inventiveness, execution, individual drive, and cooperation. National designing bodies have additionally perceived this need to instruct builds in administration (ASE, 2018).

Despite the wide recognition that leadership attributes are needed in engineering graduates, there still remains a lack of clarity on the definition of engineering leadership. Specifically, there appears to be confusion in trying to explain the engineering component in engineering leadership and articulating key differences between general leadership and engineering leadership. This research paper aims to propose a definition of engineering leadership. The definition will be based on qualitative analysis of the results from a survey distributed in a Canadian engineering context, and informed by relevant literature. Much of this research was carried out as part of a graduate degree project (Robyn Paul, Dr. Arindom, Emily Wyatt; ASE, 2018).

As the increase in demand in industry for engineering leaders is increasing so is the programs to educate the students and make them ready for the industry with all the qualities needed to make them effective leaders in the workplace. Which has turned out universities and colleges to offer programs such as Bachelor’s in Engineering Management, Master’s in Engineering Management and at some places PhD is also offered. Engineering Management can be considered as the Engineer’s MBA which helps an engineer for the professional development at the managerial level. It has been seen increase in the programs for the bachelors, masters and PhD programs and so have the interest of people in taking these courses (Daughton, 2017). Majority being the international students.

A successful engineer should possess an array of management and leadership skills apart from being technically competent. Leadership consists of decision making and judgement. It needs a certain set of core competencies and traits like visioning, communication, honesty, integrity, continuous learning, courage, tolerance for ambiguity and creativity (Riler et al., 2008).

Trends show that in the last 10 years, the science behind leadership lies in the concept of emotional intelligence. It is the most accurate predictor of success than any other forms of measure. But most educational programs focus mainly on the technical skills and miss the mark in nurturing and developing leadership abilities. In a study performed at the University of Colorado, it was seen that the students in liberal arts programs have considerably superior emotional quotients than the students of engineering. The former showed more growth in emotional quotient in the four years of undergraduate education compared to the engineering students. (Brown, 2004). Four elements of leadership consistently appear across modern literature: leadership is a process, requires collaboration, entails problem solving, and results in transformative change.

Student leadership, teamwork, and management skills are supposed to be the program outcomes by studying an engineering management course. According to ECSA engineering graduates are expected to understand the engineering management principles and must be able to apply them in their own work as a member of the team. They are expected to able to manage projects (Dr. Ann S Lourens).

Industry is approaching colleges to expand educational plans past designing substance to incorporate proficient authority (Farr and Brazil, 2009) and in 2005 the National Academy of Engineering (NAE, 2005) expressed that designing alumni required specialized magnificence, yet in addition group correspondence, moral thinking, worldwide and societal logical investigation aptitudes notwithstanding understanding work procedures. Farr and Brazil (2005) recommended that pioneer improvement is an individual procedure and an individual undertaking, regardless of authority preparing and advancement programs. In this way, the prior the improvement procedure is begun, the additional time the individual should develop into a position of authority. Moreover, architects must comprehend, focus on and grasp a deep-rooted learning frame of mind, always evaluating and assessing themselves. The Center for Creative Leadership (CCL) (McCauley and Van Velsor, 2004) proposed to concentrate on the development of inborn and as of now learned practices and built up a structure dependent on three segments, to be specific evaluation, challenge and backing.

As mentioned by Dr. Ann S Lourens what management principles include which later contributes as attributes of an engineer and helps in leadership too are as follows:

1. Planning: set objectives, select strategies, implement strategies, and review achievement.
2. Organizing: set operational model, identify and assign tasks, identify inputs, delegate responsibility, and authority.
3. Leading: give directions, set an example, communicate, motivate.
4. Controlling: monitor performance, check against standards, identify variations, and take remedial action.

The fundamental mission of the executives has continued as before, administrative errands have moved toward becoming progressively confused, for instance, because of the expanding assorted variety of workforce (Niitamo, 1999). This pattern shows in the representations developed: pioneers are directly seen as nursery workers, birthing specialists, stewards, hirelings, preachers, and facilitators, which talks about a make light of administrators’ de forma position in any case, in the meantime, accentuates the potential for social de facto authority dependent on genuine pioneer results and execution (Hunt and Dodge, 2000). The present authority hypothesis has withdrawn from the mechanical worldview concentrated on order, control, and division of work and moved to a post-mechanical one highlighting connections, systems, trust, morals, and cooperation (Rosch and Caza, 2012). This likewise talks about a move in research foci: where authority was prior the subject of brain science thinks about, it is by and by analyzed through the viewpoint of social brain science, enthused about exploring the job of the person as an individual from the gathering and part of the social environment (McAdams and Pals, 2006).

Notwithstanding these higher-level patterns, changes in the thought of work are further adding to the unpredictability of the assignment of driving workers currently: staff can never again be submitted what’s more, spurred by methods for money related motivations alone. Rather, different higher-level needs should be taken care of: workers need difficulties, they long for directors who are available and accessible for them, they request de-bureaucratization, and they call for sound working standards and values (Niitamo, 1999).

According to Pia Lappalainen (2015) leaders’ contextual performance increasingly drives productivity and effectiveness in knowledge-intensive work. Engineers when promoted based on their technical skills as managers they face problems later in the job because the newer job profile demands not just technical abilities to perform the job but also social skills and self-leadership ability. If you are not motivated to lead yourself it is not good to lead other people. To ensure that doesn’t happen analytic competence, inter-relation competence and emotional competence are the keys to tackle various aspects of emotional stress at work.

The management can be characterized as a development activity and used to keep balance, while the leadership is a strategy for improvement and vitality; the leadership is about change. The management capacities are imperative to the leadership accomplishment, and delegates must execute authoritative undertakings; be that as it may, the management stretches out past these (ASE, 2018).

In the paper released by ASE in 2018 the following attributes were mentioned about engineering leadership and explained as follows: leadership is a process; leadership requires collaboration; leadership entails problem solving; leadership is transformative. As there has been a rise in the importance of engineering leadership in the past decade, several studies and research have been done to find out the definition of engineering leadership. To summarize, engineering management organizes the work on the project in the right way, has a vision of things and can influence others with their vision and also help others in their work. Building trust is also one of the things that must be there while talking about engineering leadership. Engineers value their work based on its technical precision and perceived leadership to be imprecise, emotional, impractical and elitist (ASE 2018).

The authors sent out a survey after the study with the categories and themes which helped them to understand the definition better and helped them to propose a definition of their own. The survey results were analyzed descriptively, and it contained a lot of words to describe leadership in engineering. It contained a total of 4408 words averaging 27 words with a range of 2 to 113 words. They were coded, and it brought up to the total of 689 codes with each definition averaging 4 codes ranging from 1 to 15 codes each.

The conclusions that define the leadership in the field of engineering helped them to find a definition of their own were: “Engineering leadership is an approach that influences others to effectively collaborate and solve problems. Engineering leadership requires technical expertise, authenticity, personal effectiveness, and the ability to synthesize diverse expertise and skillsets. Through engineering leadership, individuals and groups implement transformative change and innovation to positively influence technologies, organizations, communities, society, and the world at large”.

In conclusion, engineering management has been in research for the past few years and there is still research being carried out about it right now. It plays a very important role in the industry as with no proper management of engineering there is no proper manufacturing or engineering that can be carried out. It is right to say that without engineering managers who are good at their work and show a proper leadership and authoritative qualities and help their subordinates in getting the work done are rare to find. The industry should appreciate what they have and educational institutions and the industry both should work together to help students learning about these programs in the best way possible to make the next engineering leaders of the upcoming industries.

References

1. Embedding Leadership Development in Construction Engineering and Management Education-JOURNAL OF PROFESSIONAL ISSUES IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION AND PRACTICE © ASCE / APRIL 2008 / David R. Riley, Michael J. Horman, John I. Messner.
2. CDR David J. Kern (2002). Content and Trends in Engineering Management Literature, Engineering Management Journal, 14:1, 43-48, DOI: 10.1080/10429247.2002.11415149.
3. Project Cost Engineering/Management Leadership by Going the Extra Singh. Roy Cost Engineering: May 2003; 45.
4. Business Premium Collection, pg. 7.
5. Riaz Ahmed & Vittal S. Anantatmula (2017). Empirical Study of Project Managers Leadership Competence and Project Performance. Engineering Management Journal, 29:3, 189-205, DOI: 10.1080/10429247.2017.1343005.
6. Lourens, A. S. (2018). Towards Designing a Framework for Creating Opportunities for Women Engineering Students to Develop Leadership, Teamwork and Management Skills. Kidmore End: Academic Conferences International Limited. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.emich.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/2154971088?accountid=10650
7. Rottmann, C., Sacks, R., & Reeve, D. (2015). Engineering Leadership: Grounding Leadership Theory in Engineers’ Professional Identities. Leadership, 11(3), 351–373. https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715014543581.
8. Chinowsky, P. S., and Brown, H. (2004). ‘Successful Intelligence in Civil Engineering Education’. Proc., 2004 ARCOM Conf., ARCOM.
9. William Daughton (2017). Trends in Engineering Management Education From 2011–2015, Engineering Management Journal, 29:1, 55-58, DOI: 10.1080/10429247.2017.1280747.