It appears that the designers of seawalls for the Japanese coastal cities affected by the 2011 earthquake did not consider all the combinations of environmental factors that set the effective height of a tsunami.
Archive for the ‘Philosophy’ Category
Sea Walls and Epistemic Risk
Posted in Assumptions, Uncertainty, tagged coastal defences, earthquake, japanese 2011 tsunami, overtopping, seawalls, subsidence, tsunami on 29/08/2011 | Leave a Comment »
The Titanic Effect (Part II)
Posted in Aerospace Safety, Assumptions, tagged AF 447, AirBus, assumptions, Titanic on 07/08/2011 | Leave a Comment »
Thinking about the unintentional and contra-indicating stall warning signal of AF 447 I was struck by the common themes between AF 447 and the Titanic. In both the design teams designed a vehicle compliant to the regulations of the day. But in both cases an implicit design assumption as to how the system would be operated was invalidated.
Who’s Really Responsible in the Cockpit?
Posted in Aerospace Safety, Ethics, tagged avatar, ethics, FAR 91.3, legal, protection laws, requirements, responsibility, software agent, specification on 24/05/2011 | 4 Comments »
Over the years a recurring question raised about the design of FBW aircraft has been whether pilots constrained by software embedded protection laws really have the authority to do what is necessary to avoid an accident? But this question falls into the trap of characterising the software as an entity in and of itself. The real question is should the engineers who developed the software be the final authority?
Why We Risk…
Posted in Aerospace Safety, Logic of Scientific Discovery, Uncertainty, tagged epistemic risk, experience base, knowledge, LLTV, Luna Lander Test Vehicle, NASA, Neil Armstrong, risk averse on 15/05/2011 | Leave a Comment »
Why taking risk is an inherent part of the human condition.
Rotor Bursts and Single Points of Failure (Part II)
Posted in Aerospace Safety, Assumptions, Common cause failures, Logic of Scientific Discovery, System architecting, tagged A380, AirBus, ARP 4761, certification basis, common cause failures, jet engine unconfined failures, particular hazard analysis, Qantas, QF 32, Singapore, zonal hazard analysis on 11/01/2011 | Leave a Comment »
A report by the AIA on engine rotor bursts and their expected severity raises questions about the levels of damage sustained by QF 32.
Rotor Bursts and Single Point of Failure
Posted in Aerospace Safety, Assumptions, fail safe, tagged A380, AC 20-128A, AirBus, assumptions, certification basis, QF 32, rotor burst, single point of failure, SPOF on 07/01/2011 | Leave a Comment »
It appears that the underlying certification basis for aircraft safety in the event of a intermediate power turbine rotor bursts is not supported by the rotor failure seen on QF 32.
The Titanic Effect (Part I)
Posted in Assumptions, Risk Assessment, Safety, Uncertainty, tagged Complexity, epistemic risk, implicit design assumptions, Operational procedures, Risk, Titanic, Watertight bulkheads on 27/09/2010 | 1 Comment »
So why did the Titanic sink? The reason highlights the role of implicit design assumptions in complex accidents and the interaction of design with operations of safety critical systems
Why is Change so Hard?
Posted in organisational safety cultures, Philosophy, tagged complacency, cultural change, humour, organisational change, safety culture on 24/08/2010 | Leave a Comment »
Why do safety critical organisations also fail to respond to sentinel events?
What the IPCC Got Wrong
Posted in Climate risk, Logic of Scientific Discovery, Uncertainty, tagged climate change uncertainty, climate risk, degree of acceptability, degree of corroboration, Popper, probability, uncertainty on 04/04/2010 | Leave a Comment »
The IPCC issued a set of lead author guidance notes on how to describe uncertainty prior to the fourth IPCC assessment. In it the IPCC laid out a methodology on how to deal with various classes of uncertainty. Unforunately the IPCC guidance also fell into a fatal trap.
Simple Designs Are Safer … ’cause Karl Popper Says So
Posted in Philosophy, Simplicity, Uncertainty, tagged Complexity, falsification, Popper, Safety, Simplicity on 04/03/2010 | Leave a Comment »
One of the tenets of safety engineering is that simple systems are better. Many practical reasons are advanced to justify this assertion, but I’ve always wondered what, if any, theoretical justification was there for such a position.
What is a Hazard?
Posted in Philosophy, Safety, tagged Hazard, hazard genotype, hazard phenotype, Pat Clements, safety engineering, Safety Scrapbook, source/mechanism/outcome on 14/06/2009 | Leave a Comment »
The principal of phenotype and genotype is used to explain the variability amongst definitions of hazard.
Are Safety Integrity Levels Pseudo-Science?
Posted in Philosophy, tagged DO-178, EN 50128, falsification, Hume, IEC 61508, MIL-STD-882, philosopher, Popper, pseudo-science, Safety, safety integrity level, software safety on 13/06/2009 | Leave a Comment »
Popper’s principle of falsification is used to argue that safety integrity levels as embodied in many software safety standards are, in fact, pseudo-science. If you can’t disprove it then it isn’t science.
Wittgenstein Plays Golf
Posted in Philosophy, tagged definitional problem, family resemblance, Hazard, Wittgenstein on 29/05/2009 | Leave a Comment »
Why is the concept of a hazard so hard to pin down? Wittgenstein provides some pointers as to why there is les to this old chestnut than appears to be.
I tend towards the integrative rather than reductionist view of engineering and science. I'm interested in emergence, networks, relationships and interfaces as they apply to safety.what are the facts?
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