Abstract:
History is filled with several, often spectacular, engineering disasters. With each disaster, however, engineers have learned important lessons that have prevented future disasters.

This talk covers the importance of materials in engineering disasters. In particular, examples of engineering disasters, such as the failure of the ship Titanic, the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings, and the recent Columbia Space Shuttle disaster will be covered.

In each part, the student is exposed to the engineering materials issues associated with these disasters. In particular, structure-property relationships are highlighted to obtain a fundamental understanding of the root cause of each disaster. The presentation concludes with what we, as current and future engineers, can learn to decrease the chance of future disasters.

Citation: N. Chawla, "Engineering Disasters: Learning from Failure," School of Materials, Fulton School of Engineering, Arizona State University. MaterialsTechnology@TMS 2008.