Define engineering failure Give two examples of the followin

Define engineering failure. Give two examples of the following: a) Designing to avoid failure and b) Designing to achieve failure.

Solution

An engineered system fails when it stops working. (Usually this means it broke, or broke down, or shut down.) A \"failure\" should not be mistaken for a \"malfunction,\" in which case the system may work properly next time you turn it on. (In the case of structures, however, it\'s pretty difficult to mistake the two.) As far as malfunctions are concerned, though, one should also recognize that \"malfunction\" + \"loss of opportunity\" = \"failure\" even if the system does work properly next time it\'s used.

(a) Man Made structures such as bridges, houses etc are designd to avoid failure because it may lead to severe loss of human life.

b) Designing to achieve failure is used in laboratory experiments to determine the tensile strength of materials.