Engineering Ethics

Presented by: Dr. fadl bdeir

 Chapter 8
Ethical aspects of technical risks
 Introduc)on
●  Understanding Safety
●  Designing for Safety
●  Risk assessment
Case A Coal Mining

Between 1900 and 1975, about 600 million tons of coal were mined in
the province of Limburg in the Netherlands (Pöttgens, 1988). In an area
of about 220 km2 the surface dropped about 2.5 m on average. In some
locations there was a drop of more than 10 m. The coal mining
operations were damaging the houses. Hundreds of millions in damages
were paid by the companies mining the coal. The risk of damage to the
houses was known in advance, but it thought to balance out against the
benefits of the coal mining.
Case B DC-10 Disaster

On March 3, 1974 the freight door of a DC-10 opened during flight (Eddy,
Potter, and Page, 1976). As a result, the plane crashed killing 346 people. The
risk was known beforehand, at least to some of the people involved. On June
12, 1972 a similar accident had almost occurred. Already towards the end of
the 1960s the possibility of this type of accident had been anticipated as a
result of tests. Also the Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) of the freight
doors revealed the possibility of this type of accident. One important reason
why nothing had been undertaken to reduce or avoid the risks was because
there was an ongoing conflict between the supplier responsible for the door
(Convair) and the plane manufacturer (Douglas). Neither party wanted to
weaken its legal position. Neither therefore wanted to take the first step in the
direction of adapting the design, even though each was aware of the
shortcomings. The company’s management ignored a memo written by a
Convair engineer in which the shortcomings of the door design were outlined.
Case D Asbestos

Asbestos is a product that started to come into large scale use at the
beginning of the twentieth century. Due to a number of positive
characteristics, such as heat resistance, durability, and good insulation
properties, it was applied in a large number of products. However,
during the course of time asbestos proved to have some extremely
harmful side effects. Inhaling asbestos fibers can lead to asbestos-
related diseases such as asbestosis and mesothelioma (cancer of the
lung and stomach lining), which can be lethal. According to some
estimates, as many as 10 000 people in the US and 4000 people in the
UK die yearly due to asbestos related diseases.1 These diseases only
become manifest after several decades. The use of asbestos has been
banned in the meantime in many countries.
Defini)ons
Hazard: is any source of potential damage, harm or adverse
health effects on something or someone under certain
conditions
 Examples of Hazards and Their Effects

Workplace Hazard Example of Hazard Example of Harm Caused

Thing Knife Cut
Substance Benzene Leukemia
Material Asbestos Mesothelioma
Source of Energy Electricity Shock, electrocution
Condition Wet floor Slips, falls
Process Welding Metal fume fever
Practice Hard rock mining Silicosis
Defini)ons
Risk: is the chance or probability that a person will be harmed or
experience an adverse health effect if exposed to a hazard. It may
also apply to situa4ons with property or equipment loss.
For example: The risk of developing cancer from smoking cigare@es
could be expressed as "cigare@e smokers are 12 4mes more likely to
die of lung cancer than non-smokers”. These risks are expressed as a
probability or likelihood of developing a disease or geBng injured,
whereas hazards refer to the possible consequences (e.g., lung cancer)
Factors that influence the degree of risk include:
•  how much a person is exposed to a hazardous thing or condi4on,
•  how the person is exposed (e.g., breathing in a vapour, skin
contact), and
•  how severe are the effects under the condi4ons of exposure.
Defini)ons

Safety: The application of engineering and management

principles, criteria, and techniques to reduce the aspects of
risks within the constraints of operational effectiveness,
time, and cost throughout all phases of the system life cycle

Safety:
Can technological products be made absolutely
safe?
Hence “safety” also refers to:
Risks have been reduced to a risk that is
morally acceptable.
Defini)ons
Acceptable risk:
1.  the degree of informed consent with the risk
2.  the degree to which the benefits of a risky ac4vity
weigh up against the disadvantages and risks
3.  the availability of alterna4ves with a lower risk
4.  the degree to which risks and advantages are justly
distributed.
Defini)ons
Can we define risks beforehand for a new technology ? – remember
the cases at the beginning of the chapter.
Hence uncertainty due to ignorance of new technology dimensions.

Uncertainty: Refers to situa4ons in which we know the type of

consequences, but cannot meaningfully a@ribute probabili4es to the
occurrence of such consequences

Ignorance: Lack of knowledge. Refers to the situa4on in which we do not

know what we do not know.
Designing for Safety:
The engineers responsibility for safety
Where does it come from

Code of Conduct legisla4ons

Are these enough?

Rather than assigning a safety engineer to demonstrate that a design is safe,

integrate safety considera4ons from the design phase
 Introduc)on
●  Understanding Safety
●  Designing for Safety
●  Risk assessment
Designing for Safety:
Our ethical theories come to play:

1- Consequen4alism strive for good consequence. Do no harm
when designing a product.
2- Duty ethics: General norm “you should not harm anyone”. To
check its universality imagine if you were allowed to harm others
others would be allowed to harm you.
3- Virtue ethics: Care for users is an important virtue. hence,
striving for safe products is essen4al

Designing for Safety: main principles
inherent
safety

multiple
safety
safe design independent
factors
safety barriers

negative
feedback

R SK
ENGINEERING
17/ 58
Inherently safe design
•  Inherent: belonging to the very nature of the person/
thing (inseparable)

•  Recommended first step in safety engineering

•  Change the process to eliminate hazards, rather than

accep4ng the hazards and developing add-on features
to control them

R SK
ENGINEERING
19/ 58
 Inherently safe design
1 Minimize: reducing the amount of
hazardous material present at any one
2time
Substitute: replacing one material with a less hazardous one
•  Example: cleaning with water and detergent rather than a
flammable solvent

3 Moderate: reducing the strength of an effect

•  Example: having a cold liquid instead of a gas at high pressure
•  Example: using material in a dilute rather than concentrated form

4 Simplify: designing out problems rather than adding

additional equipment or features to deal with them

R SK
ENGINEERING
8 / 58
 Inherently safe design
1 Minimize: reducing the amount of hazardous material present at
any one time

2 Substitute: replacing one material with a less hazardous one

(instead of encapsula4ng the process)
•  Example: cleaning with water and detergent rather than a
flammable solvent

3 Moderate: reducing the strength of an effect

•  Example: having a cold liquid instead of a gas at high pressure
•  Example: using material in a dilute rather than concentrated form

4 Simplify: designing out problems rather than adding

additional equipment or features to deal with them

R SK
ENGINEERING
8 / 58
 Inherently safe design

1 Minimize: reducing the amount of hazardous material present at
any one time

2 Substitute: replacing one material with a less hazardous one

•  Example: cleaning with water and detergent rather than a
flammable solvent
3 Moderate: reducing the strength of an effect
•  Example: having a cold liquid instead of a gas at high pressure
•  Example: using material in a dilute rather than concentrated form

4 Simplify: designing out problems rather than adding

additional equipment or features to deal with them

R SK
ENGINEERING
8 / 58
 Inherently safe design
1 Minimize: reducing the amount of hazardous material present at
any one time

2 Substitute: replacing one material with a less hazardous one

•  Example: cleaning with water and detergent rather than a
flammable solvent

3 Moderate: reducing the strength of an effect

•  Example: having a cold liquid instead of a gas at high pressure
•  Example: using material in a dilute rather than concentrated form

4 Simplify: designing out problems rather than adding

additional equipment or features to deal with them

R SK
ENGINEERING
8 / 58
US CSB safety video Inherently Safer: The Future of Risk Reduc;on, July 2012

Watch the video: https://youtu.be/h4ZgvD4FjJ8

R SK
10 / 58 ENGINE
ERING
Nega4ve feedback or fail safe
Illustration: railroad semaphores stop go

▷ Railroad semaphores are designed so that the

vertical position indicates stop/danger

▷ If the controlling mechanism fails, gravity

pulls the arm down to the “stop” position

Image source: https//flic.kr/p/nP4JbD, CC BY-NC-SA licence

38/ 58
R SK
ENGINEERING
Nega4ve feedback or fail safe
Illustration: elevator brakes
The safety elevator, invented by Elisha Otis in 1861.

At the top of the elevator car is a braking mechanism made of
spring-loaded arms and pivots. If the main cable breaks, the
springs push out two sturdy bars called “pawls” so they lock into
vertical racks of
upward-pointing teeth on either side. This ratchet-like device
clamps the elevator in place.

Modern elevators generally use a safety governor which is
activated when the elevator moves too quickly. If centrifugal
force exerts a greater force on hooked flyweights than a spring
holding them in place, they lock into ratchets and stop the
elevator. R SK
ENGINEERING
40/ 58
 Introduc)on
●  Understanding Safety
●  Designing for Safety
●  Risk assessment
Risk assessment
-  To judge whether certain hazards are acceptable; use need
to do “risk assessment” with is a systema4c inves4ga4on in
which the risks of a technology are mapped and
quan4ta4vely in a certain risk measure.

Ex: gathering of information on toxic effects of a chemical

product release
Risk assessment
Risk assessment usually contains four steps:
1. Release assessment
2. Exposure assessment
3. Consequence assessment
4. Risk es4ma4on
Release Assessment
These are physical effects that can lead to harm due to
technical installa4on (shockwaves, radia4on)
Release Assessment
Two type of Release.
1.  Incidental: unintended due to accidents or failures (accident
in nuclear power plant). These produce immediate harm.

Need to detect failure modes (series of events that lead to
the failure of an installa4on)
Use event trees: start with a certain event and consider what
event will follow.
fault tree: move backwards from unwanted event (or fault)
to the events that could lead to the fault
Release Assessment: Event trees
Release Assessment: Fault trees
Release Assessment
2. Con4nuous release: An4cipated, may be accepted as
side-effect for produc4on process.
Exposure assessment
Exposure means contact at a boundary
between a specific being (human, animal,
environment ) and a specific release for a
specified period of time.

Identifies affected population

Calculates the amount, frequency, length of
time, and route of exposure
Exposure assessment
Consequence assessment
Rela4onship between exposure and harmful
Consequence:
1.  Acute harm or to the number of direct fatalities.
2.  Long term effect on health or the environment. like
giving animals certain dosage and comparing them
to control group. (dose-response relationships)


Risk Es)ma)on
Risk is determined and presented using previous
results. Units can be :
-  Number of expected fatali4es per unit 4me.
-  Reduced life span of people