Online Courses

Engineering Disasters: Learning From Failures

Course description

Space shuttle explosions. Nuclear meltdowns. Airplane crashes. Bridge collapses.  

Learn the fundamentals of how engineers look at past failures to prevent future ones in this asynchronous course designed to last 15 weeks. In this class, students will learn about systems safety analysis techniques as they engage in case studies of 15 different engineering disasters. Students will examine the facts surrounding each case, do some reading, run some simulations, learn how to do complicated unit conversions, look at root cause analysis, and develop an on-going list of what to do and what NOT to do when designing new projects. While a few of these disasters have historical significance beyond the engineering event itself, specific details about the geopolitical context are only included as much as necessary to discuss the engineering issues that occurred in each one of them. Most of these disasters involve tragedy and loss of life, but a few do not. Images and some audio/video are included in the course to help students better understand and analyze each event, and those have been selected with care. However, students who might have personal connections to some of these tragedies may want to avoid this course.  

The following disasters comprise the 15 case studies: (1) US Airways Flight 1549 landing in the Hudson, (2) Zeppelin Hindenburg,  (3) I-35W bridge collapse in Minneapolis, (4) USS Belknap/USS Kennedy collision, (5) Apollo 13, (6) Space Shuttle Challenger, (7) Fukushima nuclear accident, (8) Exxon Valdez oil spill, (9) Air France Flight 4590 Concorde crash, (10) Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse, (11) Texas City port explosion, (12) World Trade Center on 9/11, (13) Great Boston Molasses Flood, (14) Air Canada Flight 143, and (15) a final event chosen by the student. 

 Note: Baylor TIP students taking this course should have completed or be concurrently enrolled in Algebra 2. 

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