Featuring:
Henry Petroski, Ph.D. and
Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering
and Professor of History, Duke University
Why Ships Sink and Bridges Fall Down
Monday, March 19th 2012, at 1:30 p.m.
Banquet Room B Oakland University Rochester, MI
The Hammerle Lecture Begun in 1987, the Hammerle Lecture is named in honor of the late William G. Hammerle, founding professor of Engineering at Oakland University. The series brings lecturers to Oakland who reflect Hammerle’s creative approaches to solving challenging problems. The William G. Hammerle endowment and the School of Engineering and Computer Science sponsor this event.
Engineering is about making and doing things that have not been done before. To be successful, engineers must anticipate how things can fail. Case studies of past failures provide invaluable information for the design of future successes. But designs based only on past successes can, surprisingly, lead to failure. This paradox will be explored in Dr. Petroski’s lecture — he will discuss intriguing historical case of ocean liner and suspension bridge failure. Lessons learned from these cases and others can be generalized to apply across a broad spectrum of systems — and provide fascinating insights for us all!
This lecture is free and open to the public.