What We Must Learn from the Big Dig Collapse

May 15, 2008

Engineers made several errors that resulted in the Big Dig tunnel collapse two years ago. That conclusion Is not mine; it comes from Myer Ezrin, a longtime polymer failure analysis expert who studied the materials in the public docket of the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board. “The message still hasn’t adequately penetrated enough that when engineers are dealing with new materials, they should use caution with the sources that they rely on,” says Myer Ezrin, a failure analysis expert and former researcher at the University of Connecticut’s Institute of Material Science. “Engineers working with material they have little or no experience with—particularly if it is a life and death matter as it was in the Big Dig—have to investigate the choices and then confirm that investigation.”

Posted by Doug Smock on May 15, 2008 | Comments (0)

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