Lessons from failure

Sean Brady provides an overview of the technical and human factors that contributed to the partial collapse of Dutch football team FC Twente’s stadium roof.

Sean Brady stresses the importance of managing 'human factors' to reduce human error within bridge projects, citing international examples from which lessons can be learned.

Sean Brady highlights potential similarities between the recent Sasago road tunnel collapse in Japan and the catastrophic failure of part of Boston’s I-90 Connector Tunnel in 2006.

Could the 30 year failure cycle evident in specific bridge failures be coincidence or something more? Sean Brady looks at the technical and human aspects of this unfortunate trend.

Sean Brady examines one of the recurring themes from the ICE’s Fifth International Conference on Forensic Engineering.

Sean Brady investigates the contribution of 'corporate memory loss' to the failure of a railway bridge near Dublin, Ireland.

Drawing on two high profile examples, Sean Brady suggests that attitudes toward near-misses can sometimes result in complacency – with catastrophic consequences.

Here, Sean Brady sets out seven strategies for identifying and reacting to structural failure near-misses.

A forensic examination of the 2007 I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota, responsible for the deaths of 13 people.

In the first part of a two-part article, Sean Brady explores the differences between a good designer and a good forensic engineer.

Sean Brady assesses the strengths and weaknesses of applying engineering analysis to the forensic process.

Based on an article originally published in The New Yorker, Sean Brady reflects on the Citicorp tower crisis.

Based on a recently published case study in ASCE’s Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities, Sean Brady highlights the systemic management failings that resulted in huge financial cost and significant reputational damage to a high profile project.

In the first of a two-part article, Sean Brady takes readers through the chain of events that led to the collapse during construction, with 75 deaths, of the Quebec Bridge.

In the concluding part of this article, Sean Brady explores in more detail the technical cause of the Quebec Bridge collapse and the human factors that lay behind this.

In this intriguing tale of the Getty kouros, Sean Brady explores the role that implicit assumptions play in undermining experts’ judgment.

Sean Brady highlights the perils of sticking rigidly to a concrete construction schedule regardless of weather conditions.

To mark International Women’s Day, Sean Brady presents the first of a two-part article exploring the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge and the crucial role Emily Warren Roebling played in making it a reality.

Sean Brady concludes the story of the Brooklyn Bridge, detailing how Emily Roebling defied the odds to see the project through to completion.

Sean Brady tells the stories of some of the survivors, rescuers and engineers involved in the Hyatt Regency walkway collapse.

In this two-part article with a difference, Sean Brady looks further afield to explore how ‘expertise bias’ may cloud our judgement.

Sean Brady concludes this two-part article with a warning to engineers not to become over-reliant on their ‘tools’, but to consider how and when to apply them.

While we may think of blind faith in technology as a modern affliction, Sean Brady’s account of the Hartford Civic Center Stadium collapse shows that overreliance on structural analysis software is not a new problem.

Sean Brady explores how the lessons of the 2014 Virgin Galactic crash are pertinent to all design engineers, irrespective of discipline.

Sean Brady examines how engineers learn from failure and discovers that frustration is key.

Sean Brady explores the wider societal ramifications of devastating structural failures.

With Nicaragua planning a new canal to link the Atlantic and Pacific, Sean Brady considers the lessons of the Panama Canal when engineers face up to nature on such a grand scale.

Sean Brady concludes his tale of the Panama Canal and looks ahead to the potential challenges of building the proposed Nicaragua Canal.

Sean Brady examines the remarkable engineering works that may have underpinned the Hanging Garden of Babylon - one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Sean Brady relates the failure of several box-girder bridges of the 1960s and 1970s and explains how these led to new design rules and workmanship guidance.

Sean Brady recounts the tale of the Comet jet airliner crashes of the 1950s and explains how the trailblazing accident investigation revealed a failure of imagination that holds lessons for all engineers.