Engineering is not often billed as an adrenaline-infused profession.
Indeed, introducing yourself as an engineer at a party likely won’t earn you the admiring oohs and ahhs that, say, a fireman or US Navy Seal might get. But for anyone who has ever inadvertently burnt off their fingertip with a soldering iron (yep, four-printed wonder right here), you know that engineering can be, and often is, risky business. After all, done right, it’s a hands-on profession.
That’s why a recent thread over on Quora caught my eye this morning.
“What are the deadliest construction/engineering projects in history?” was the title, with the subheading “For each, did technology exist at the time that could have made the work safer?”
The author listed the building of the Great Wall of China, the Panama Canal, and the pyramids as probably the most risky engineering projects in history, resulting in thousands of deaths. Still, those somehow feel a little far back and grandiose. Also, in the case of the Panama Canal, most of the deaths occurred after workers contracted yellow fever or malaria, rather than engineering work accidents.
The building of the Hoover dam, the great railroads, and mining were also all cited as examples of high-risk engineering, but the answers all seemed to fall a bit short. After all, the perils of structural engineering seem fairly obvious. You build something massive out of bricks and/or steel, and there’s a high likelihood bits may fall off and bop people on the head.
But what of the disasters in electrical engineering? What are the big notable ones?
At the risk of sounding like one of those cheesy TV lawyers, have you yourself ever inadvertently electrocuted yourself, a family member, or your dog? Slipped with your soldering iron and have scars to tell the tale?
Anything and everything from exploding laptops, to spontaneous combustion of batteries, or bringing down the power of an entire area -- if you have a story, we want to hear it.
No, I’m not going to help you sue for damages, but I do want to hear your engineering horror stories, with photographic evidence, if possible. After all, what good is a scar if you can’t show it off?
Send your tales of engineering horror to me at Sylvie.Barak@ubm.com or post them in the comments section below.
Many years back, I was using an inexpensive digital meter to check for the presence of 480 volts. It turned out that I had the meter leads in the current measurement positions. The meter was giving me funny results, and I was getting rather annoyed. I kept trying to get a reading, and suddenly the meter exploded in my hand. The front half of the case split from the rear half, and was hanging by some wires. I had a charred spot on my shirt, and the lead sockets were basically vaporized.
There was photographic evidence taken, and I wish I could find it. Since I wasn't actually injured, it was a pretty funny picture. I was holding the exploded meter, with the leads hanging down, with the charred spot square in the middle of my shirt, and a big smile on my face.
Thanks for sharing your story, ttemple. Given your level of annoyance/frustration over the uncooperative meter, it must have been a little satisying when it vaporized itself! Glad you weren't hurt.
Fresh out of college I was given a filament circuit to design, prototype and test. One day in the lab my mentor was helping me with something in the lab and for some reason wanted me to apply more input voltage than required. I remember telling him the input resistor isn't rated for this kind of power. He said no problem keep going... I kept going... then I said that resistor is getting hot...he said no problem keep going...as the resistor glowed..smoked and then fire... The fire scared him and for some reason seemed to surprise him. I was thinking I kept telling you that resistor wasn't going to make it. But to his defense people would be a little jumpy in our lab since we designed high voltage circuits.
Not really a funny story on paper, it was much funnier to me back then.
I was a marine service engineer while completing my college studies, and I got a call to work on the Mal de Testa, the ship the original Goodbye Mr. Roberts was filmed on. They had a radar problem. I reached under the console to feel where the 24VDC power wires were going and my wedding ring shorted out the reverse-biased protection diode was mounted and blew a chunk out of my wedding ring and burned my finger nearly down to the bone. Yes it hurt.
Now I am careful. Very careful. I get to show off my scar from time to time, so it wasn't a total disaster...
I was working on an electric oven control. This one was for Europe and ran off of 50Hz. We didn't have 50Hz supplied to the building, but we did have a rotary converter (a motor with a generator attached) by the docks to provide 50A/230V 50Hz in the labs. My technician had made a slight wiring error on the control I was working on and I had a dead short across the mains. I plugged the control into the wall socket and instantly the walls of the building began to vibrate at 50Hz because the wiring inside was vibrating from the dead short. With a 50A breaker and hefty wiring to handle oven currents, nothing was going to open the circuit. I tried to pull the plug from the wall, but it only moved a couple of millimeters before becoming welded inside the socket. Everybody in the building was now "prairie dogging" to see what the source of all the noise was. I waited a second for the plug to melt a little and then pulled it out another couple of millimeters until it welded again. I had to do this a couple more times before the plug was clear of the socket showering me with a little splash of molten copper.
Since then I always test the controls with a small load and a tiny fuse before stepping up to the real world.
I had a problem with the 100A three-phase feed to the earth station servo system. I traced the problem right back to the main station distribution switchboard, well beyond my pay-grade at the time. With the chief electrician in charge reading out the maker's instructions I followed his every word to remove and inspect the contact carriage. According to the book by means of a "special feature" it was supposedly safe to do this operation off-load but with the rest of the switchboard on-line. We had never used that brand of switchboard before and we took the instructions at face value. "Remove locking screw A" - OK. "Raise latch lever B" - OK. "Grasp carrier firmly, lift and pull out" - BANG! When our eyes and ears returned to normal I was unhurt and had not received an electric shock but my hand was covered with that lovely bronze sheen from vaporised copper. The switchboard was wrecked and we never used that brand again. Surprisingly they are still in business. No names, no pack drill...
The fact that I have all ten fingers is remarkable. I'm always amazed when my fingerprints reappear.
I've defintely burned and sliced off my finger tips several times. I think it all started when, at the age of 12, I put a sewing machine needle through my right index finger. All of the adults panicked but the nail eventually grew out.
ttemple: "...holding the meter, with the leads hanging down, with the charred spot square in the middle of my shirt..." Sounds like a classic Wile E. Coyote picture. The only part missing was the burn marks on your face.
As an engineer, i have had my fair share of experiences with errant voltages and shocks from contact with incorrect wires, but my only real injury was due to inexperience when I started my first job out of high school. At the company, rookie engineer projects were usually completed through the build process with the engineer working with the necessary support personnel to physically complete the project. My design called for a bracket of steel bent into a certain angle and then drilled and tapped. The technician that I was working with explained that they usually complete brackets like this by heating the bend point cherry red and attaching a clamp and bending the bracket into place. I said no problem and the tech left for break. I attached the clamp, began heating the steel and when it was cherry red, i grabbed the clamp and immediately learned that heat transfers through steel quickly. I missed the step that stated to attach the clamp after the metal was hot. I still have the burn scars to remind me of the heat transfer capabilities of steel.
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