Weather Hank is a young civil engineer fresh out of college

Weather Hank is a young civil engineer, fresh out of college and working for a major design company in Manhattan. He has finished the design for his first project with the firm, an addition of an elementary school located outside the City, and happy that everything went relatively smooth Since this was his experience working with a real project with real deadlines, he often felt rushed and could not put the amount of time he would have liked to finish the design. design was checked by his supervisor Joe, even if it was a quick glance at the calculations anf final numbers. He felt reassured that his Hank sad some time on his hands before his next assignment started So, he decided to go over some of the drawings from the design he just completed. While examining the drawings, Hank realized he made a mistake in his design. He used the wrong building code for the design and therefore, used the wrong allowable wind design parameters. Instead of designing for 120 miles per hour (mph) winds, his design used wind speed of 75 mph. Hank was shocked that both he and his supervisor has missed this. The construction of the school is almost completed. Hank knows any adjustments made to the design using correct wind speed will be extremely expensive and his firm will be the liable party. He also knows informing his managers will not go well for his career within the firm. He also thinks about the chances of the school experiencing a 120 mph wind and fail due to that 1 Based on Case 5-9, Engineering and Environmental Ethics by John R Wilcox and Louis Theodore, John Wiley&Sons;

Solution

Facts of the case:

1. Hank is a fresher and has done a major mistake in building of school by selecting the wrong code

2. His supervisor joe has also missed the major mistake

3. The School is designed at a wind speed of 75 mph where as it should be designed for 120 Mph

4. The redesigning of the structure is very costly and it may affect the career of joe.

2. The ethical questions facing hank may be:

1. Should I inform to the manager about the mistake in my code?

2. Is my structure safe for a wind speed of 120 Mph?

3. Will my party face any prosecution in case of failure of the structure?

3. To ethically resolve the solution, hank must inform his supervisor and manager about the mistake done by him in his code design, the demolishing and construction of the building may be different but the modification and the adjustment can be done by them as they are well trained and well experienced.

4. The responsibility of his supervisor joe is

To verify the mistakes done by any engineer

To check the errors or calculation in design

Implementation of drawings on site

Verify the work done by the men on site

5. The main aim of a civil engineer is to provide a safe structure within minimum cost, the most primary responisbility of a civil engineer is to provide safety, the building which is designed is an elementary school building so this project should be safe rather than focusing on the cost, in case of failure of the structure there will be a lot of damage and casualities in school children, so it should be designed for maximum safety