Structural Failure and Hazard Engineering

The paper discusses the conjecture that engineering safety is not just a technical problem of reliability, but a social/technical problem of responsibility. It considers the necessity for engineers to change their view of the nature of engineering from an applied science view to a systems view with study of the unintended consequences of human error. Turner's model of accident development is presented. Hazards are defined quite generally as the precondition to failure. Hazard engineering is concerned with the identification, by audit, and treatment, by management, of incubating accidents, failures and disasters.