It is easy in retrospect to say that the Deepwater Horizon accident did not have to happen. The design of the blowout preventer should arguably have anticipated that a difficult-to-control well might cause the well pipe to be propelled upwards and buckle and so present a far-from-ideal piping geometry for the so-called blind shear rams in the blowout preventer to deal with.
There evidently were warnings that the well being drilled was a difficult one to control, and there were reported irregularities in the condition and status of safety devices and warning systems on the rig. However, instead of these precursors of failure being heeded, they were ignored or accepted as business as usual. In the wake of the spill, BP, Transocean (the rig's owner-operator), and the contractor Halliburton argued among themselves about who was responsible for the accident.
The presence of the blowout preventer provided a sense of backup security, in that it presumably could be called upon to control the well should anything go drastically wrong on the rig. This proved to place unwarranted confidence in an unreliable piece of complex machinery. The relative liability of the companies involved in the drilling operation gone amok will no doubt continue for some time to be argued among managers, lawyers, and regulators, and the final outcome is likely to be a financial settlement that will not get to the heart of the matter. What appears to be clear about the technical, economic, regulatory, and environmental tragedy is that the root cause of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill was at least as much a human problem as a mechanical one.
It is interesting to draw parallels between the Space Shuttle and oil drilling. While deep water drilling is much more complex than most other drilling, the Shuttle is something altogether different and more complex. In the early days of rocket development, there were many failures. Then, expendables became very reliable, although there are still occasional failures. The thing that differentiates the Shuttle Program is that it invoives manned flight and that it was an attempt to present space flight as a routine, repeatable activity like airline travel. It most decidely is not. Between the high cost and high visibility of the program, failures are magnified. We accept far more danger when we drvie a car.
More people died in the Deep Horizon accident than in the Challenger accident. In addition, there was significant environmental damage in the oil rig disaster than in the Shuttle accident.
Excellent analysis, and the Challenger example spotlights the psychological aspect of the "normalization of deviance" culture which works its way into the engineering mindset in situations where the failure rate has previously been so low that it's easy(easier) to coerce the engineers responsible for ensuring safety that things have been OK for so long, why should this time be any different. In any life situation, there's pressure to conform to the group, and that's exploited in situations such as those described here. That's why when the disastrous consequences come, they seem to be outliers, but in reality they're not and are to be expected.
Just reading Professor Petroski's post reminded me of watching those heart-wrenching images of oil gushing into the gulf and I'm glad it did. Truth is, once disasters like the BP oil spill or Japan's Fukushima are behind us (or at least out of sight in the media), the general public tends to forget and move on, which lets the corporate conglomerates get away with the human failure that Petroski's describes--the finger pointing and internal jockeying for where to place blame. Seems to me that dollars could have been well spent solving the mechanical problem--that is, redesigning or reengineering the blow-out preventor to operate more effectively no matter that it was a complex piece of machinery. Probably would have been far less painful to the bottom line then the PR and environmental recovery effort that befell them after the disaster.
In a world that's going green, industrial operations have a problem: Their processes involve materials that are potentially toxic, flammable, corrosive, or reactive. If improperly managed, this can precipitate dangerous health and environmental consequences.
An analysis of what’s needed to implement Design for Disassembly and Design for Recycling results in eight strategies engineers can use to design an intentional end-of-life stage into their products.
Government regulations, coupled with growing consumer sensitivity about data and identity theft, require that data storage organizations demonstrate proper protection and due diligence in protecting sensitive information stored inside datacenter enclosures.
When a crane doesn't have a monitoring system, crane owners schedule service every six months and simply scrap the parts they replace, even if a part has had little use and doesn't need replacing. This can cost thousands.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 3
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
A quick look into the merger of two powerhouse 3D printing OEMs and the new leader in rapid prototyping solutions, Stratasys. The industrial revolution is now led by 3D printing and engineers are given the opportunity to fully maximize their design capabilities, reduce their time-to-market and functionally test prototypes cheaper, faster and easier. Bruce Bradshaw, Director of Marketing in North America, will explore the large product offering and variety of materials that will help CAD designers articulate their product design with actual, physical prototypes. This broadcast will dive deep into technical information including application specific stories from real world customers and their experiences with 3D printing. 3D Printing is
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
3 
