The Quebec Bridge Disaster - Essay Sample

The Quebec Bridge is the largest bridge in the world. It is 987m long made of riveted steel truss. The project failed twice and collapsed causing death to 88 lives. It took over 30 years in its construction, and the building was an idea of the Quebec bridge company. The primary purpose of its construction was to subsidize the means of transportation of goods to the shores of Quebec City. The bridge was designed by the Phoenix bridge company who was given the contract to develop. The chief design engineer was Theodore Cooper who was mandated to supervise the designing and the construction

The engineering ethical aspects were violated in this project starting from its design to its development. Cooper and his team were handed the drawing, and instead of checking it thoroughly, he approved it even without making any changes. The whole team undermined testing on the design while they knew its consequences of not well reviewed. The collapse of the bridge was mostly due to lack of teamwork (Davis, 2017). It was found that the construction had started even before the design was approved. The expected weight of the bridge was indicated in the model which was ignored. Notably, Cooper realized in advance that the projected weight on the low side was far-off the threshold for engineering. Due to his ignorance on such pressing matters, the collapse occurred. Cooper knew the consequences associated with this project failure were not worth risking. Similarly, he did not show professionalism and his team made a lot of assumptions which violates the engineering ethical aspects in their field of practice. Also, ignorance was another factor which violated ethics in engineering (Brady, 2014). Cooper ignored factors like the shifting of the girders that held the bridge which was an issue that was supposed to sort even before the collapsing.

Quebec Bridge was supposed to make history to Coopers team, but they violated some measure which led to its failure. The collapse claimed a good number of deaths which should have been prevented if proper guidelines were followed. Engineers should enhance human welfare as well as being honest by the use of their knowledge and skills and endeavor to upsurge their competency and reputation of their profession. The measure that should have been taken to avoid this incidence lied to the engineer. More time should have been allowed for the completion of the project without hurry, and strict deadlines should not have been given (Basart, & Serra, 2013). More funds should have been set aside, and they should have permitted space for making an allowance for any hazards and hence have sufficient time for dealing with them.

Conclusively, this project was thought to create history across the world, and its history was made at the wrong end. Although the bridge was completed, later on, the causes of its collapsing could have been initially avoided. Lack of cooperation and ignorance from Cooper led to the collapse of the bridge. As a professional engineer in bridge construction, he violated the ethics in the engineering field that resulted in a significant impact and failure that could have been prevented.

References

Basart, J. M., & Serra, M. (2013). Engineering ethics beyond engineers ethics. Science and Engineering Ethics, 19(1), 179-187.

Brady, S. (2014). The Quebec bridge collapse: A preventable failure (part 1). The Structural Engineer, 92(11), 20-21.

Davis, M. (Ed.). (2017). Engineering ethics. Routledge.