REFLECTIONS OF A NAVAL ARCHITECT

SAFETY: THE ENGINEER AND THE PUBLIC

18 March 1999

Summary

To the engineer and to the public, the search for safety is like the scientist’s search for truth -an elusive and seemingly unattainable goal. This is a subject of growing importance which is developing rapidly and is likely to impinge increasingly on the day-to-day work of the engineer. This Talk reviewed progress, through the last six decades, of our attempts to assess and assure safety in engineering artefacts; to try to identify some of the main ideas and methods underlying present approaches; and to look forward to what may lie ahead.

Autobiographical Note

This is a survey seen through the work and experience of a Naval Architect, who has been mainly concerned with academic and research aspects of marine work, and with some emphasis on the design and safety of ship structures. However, because much of the pioneering work on safety methodology had its origins in the structural field, and these ideas have found application in other sectors of engineering, it is hoped that this survey will be of interest and value to engineers in other disciplines.

The author’s professional career started in 1943 as an apprentice in the Ship Drawing Office of Vickers-Armstrong’s shipbuilding works in Barrow. Through night-school at Barrow Technical College, then as a student of naval architecture at Liverpool University and as a graduate draughts man working mainly on passenger ships, the topic of safety was largely assumed to be catered for by adherence to traditional design procedures and rules. It was only as a postgraduate student at Bristol University (from 1949 to 1955), working in Professor Sir Alfred Pugsley’s research group in Civil Engineering, that the inadequacies of such procedures became fully apparent. Pugsley’s own background in aeronautical engineering, and his original and rational approach to the evaluation of safety, strongly influenced not only the Author, but the engineering profession generally.

Opportunities to develop, and apply in ship design, some of Pugsley’s ideas on safety factors came with the Author’s appointment to the Department of Naval Construction in the Admiralty at Bath (1955-60) and then to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich (1960-66). An invitation to spend a year (1962-3) at MIT in Boston brought the Author into contact with American work on safety, and especially with their attempts to introduce the concept of risk, which were similar to Pugsley’s own pioneering work.

Appointment to Newcastle University in 1966, and subsequent work with many research students, together with growing contacts with various national and international agencies concerned with safety, enabled the Author to explore ideas on other aspects of marine safety. This also afforded a wider view of the accelerating developments, in the last quarter of the 20th century, towards a much more explicit concern and responsibility for the safety assurance of engineered artefacts. The Author’s advisory and committee work for government departments and safety agencies such as Lloyds Register - especially after major accidents - has brought into focus some of the main strands (and the many difficulties) in devising satisfactory ways for the evaluation and assurance of safety.

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