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Originally Posted by dd74
Okay. I'll buy that. The design was bad. But all the engineering in the world can't know the design is bad until it's put into play.
In another words, whether the accelerator was American, Italian, Vietnamese or Martian made, (as I shrug), it all points back to the bow of shame...
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No, no, no. the point of engineering is to anticipate the failure of each and every safety system. On most of the equipment, we had to have a triple stacked failure before a catastrophic event.
You need to keep things simple. You need to anticipate failure and have a backup that can be relied upon. Read the WSJ Letter that preceded mine. Many times the mech-e's are over ruled.
I'm not suggesting that we have to go back to pneumatics and links and levers for everything. But putting something as essential as the brakes into a place where a single point failure will kill, is really bad.
I've written programming for operating Gas Turbines, Steam Turbines and Combined Cycle power plants. I understand the limitations of instrumentation, valve, heat exchangers, etc. I have been asked to "solve" hardware issues with the controls. I deeply understand what they are facing. I would never have made the design decisions they did.