Doing the Right Thing: Ethics in Engineering

As a future engineer, I know that I will be continually tasked with solving problems for others, after all that is the nature of the profession. In this world however, solving problems always comes with costs; whether economic, social or environmental there is always a cost.  As an engineer you are tasked with balancing risk and reward, cost and benefit continually, I believe that to make those decisions you really have to maintain a strong ethical foundation, something to lean on, rely on and reference when you find yourself in one of those "gray" areas.

I am clearly not the first to feel this way, the organization the Order of the Engineer founded in 1970 that does just that.  Every engineer to join the order must take an oath, and wear a ring, so they don't forget. That oath goes as follows:

An engineer receiving his ring at a
ceremony at Wayne State University

"I am an engineer, in my profession I take deep pride.
To it I owe solemn obligations.
Since the stone age, human progress has been spurred by the engineering genius.
Engineers have made usable nature's vast resources of material and energy for humanity's benefit.
Engineers have vitalized and turned to practical use the principles of science and the means of technology.
Were it not for this heritage of accumulated experience, my efforts would be feeble.
As an engineer, I pledge to practice integrity and fair dealing, tolerance, and respect, and to uphold devotion to the standards and the dignity of my profession, conscious always that my skill carries with it the obligation to serve humanity by making the best use of Earth's precious wealth.
As an engineer, I shall participate in none but honest enterprises.
When needed, my skill and knowledge shall be given without reservation for the public good.
In the performance of duty and in fidelity to my profession, I shall give the utmost."

These are powerful words, they cut to the core of duty and it helps to define the line between right and wrong, black and white that can become so muddled.

I look forward to taking this oath,  being part of the community of responsible engineers, and a good steward of the faith others put in my work.  As a civil engineer I will be faced with the unique position of in many ways reshaping the environment people are in, most likely, as it is my focus via the structures they inhabit.  Reading this oath, and remembering its tenants are what I hope will always keep that line between right and wrong clearly defined for me.

Android@Home

Back in May of 2011 Google announced a new technology that they are calling Android@Home. Although not directly related to Civil Engineering, I believe this technology has a potential to change the field in a positive and permanent way.

In an earlier blog post I spoke about what I believe the future of civil engineering to be, responsive structures, and Android@Home has the potential to tie a responsive building integrally into one's lifestyle. In essence, Android@Home is a bridge between enabled devices of any kind to a control device. Hearkening back to my previous post, there is a new breed of structure sensor arrays that can monitor a structure's health in real-time.  I can envision, in the near future, an integration of those sensors with a technology such as the Android@Home. Allowing homeowners to integrate their physical home into their daily lives.  For example, a security system integrated with structural sensors can determine if there is anyone in the home when there shouldn't be, even more, it should be able to determine how many and where they are in the home directly to the police in real-time. This same issue, taken from a residential perspective to a commercial one.  

Imagine if you would, this same technology deployed in a multi-storied structure like an office or apartment building and a fire breaks out. The local fire department can have intelligent information on the structural integrity of the building before, and while, firefighters arrive on scene and enter the building. Additionally, thermal sensors integrated within the structure can pin-point the presence of fire concentrations allowing fire fighters to focus their efforts. Changing an profession based primarily on gut-feeling to one with managed risk.

With respect to civil engineering, this scenario of monitoring a building under failure conditions alone could prove invaluable.  Engineers imagine how structures react under such cases but the truth is, there is currently no real way to model such events. The data gathered by real-time monitoring of real world structure failing could yield new insights into mitigating or preventing failure completely. For example, though it may be in poor taste, take the example of the World Trade Center towers, it wasn't until months of engineering review later that we knew exactly how and why the building yielded. If this technology were deployed then, authorities on scene could potentially have seen the structure approaching failure and evacuated, mitigating the disaster.

Android@Home envisions this world, where anyone with authorization can access all of this information with a tablet, computer or smart phone. This review of Google's news does not broach on the subject of security or personal information intentionally, though it is a given that in a world where more information is becoming recorded and monitored management of that information will be come a serious priority.

Responsive Structures

As a proud and unabashed geek, the marriage of computer technology to my chosen field of profession is of particular interest to me. In an article I read recently from Science Daily, “Sensor Sensibility: Better Protection for Concrete Coastal Structures” they introduce a technology that will open the door for a whole new generation of civil engineering.

The article talks about a new sensor technology that can be deployed long-term, semi-permanently into concrete structures to monitor such metrics as pH and chloride levels.  The real news here is not the sensor, those have been around for some time. Instead the real hero here is the extended lifespan. The new sensor has an estimated lifespan of several years, up from just weeks due to the harsh chemical environment found in concrete. This extended lifespan makes practical real-world applications of concrete monitoring a reality.

This is particularly important for the applications of steel reinforced concrete, for example, in a road.  Concrete itself is not susceptible to water corrosion; however, the steel rebar within it is very much so susceptible to oxidation or rust.  This is particularly important in roadways where the use of salt in ice abatement is common practice. Salt and water both will permeate the concrete and reach the steel within. Sensors like these will provide maintenance managers and engineers warning of a decaying structure before it fails instead of waiting for the tell tale sign of cracked concrete and exposed steel reinforcing to make costly repairs.

Although the sensor and the implication of early warning information are both important technological advances, the true future of this technology, the way I see it reaches out much, much farther.

Enter – the integrated world.  Yes, I used a buzzword, but in this case it is actually the correct one. In my opinion the future of almost every field is simply this: integration. The sensors mentioned in this article combined with others such as extensometers, capable of measuring strain on structural members can be combined.

Communication technology has come far enough now that is reasonable to expect devices to communicate effectively between each other. I believe the future of construction, and therefore structural engineering, is in responsive structures.

I define a responsive structure as one that is integrated by a computer system such that it is capable of responding to conditions intelligently.

 Imagine for a moment a busy downtown bridge fitted with strain, corrosion and load sensors. On some random, so –far uneventful day a computer integrated with the bridge’s sensors and a database of historical traffic data determines that: at current corrosion levels of a specific structural member, combined with expected rush-hour traffic that the bridge will likely exceed its safe structural operating threshold. The computer responds by automatically closing the bridge, working in tandem with the systems operating city street lights to re-route traffic while at the same time notifying the necessary people regarding the situation.

These sensors bring us one step closer.

Structural Engineering

What is a structural engineer you ask?  Well, in short it is a civil engineer that has chosen to set his or her focus on solving the problems related to humanity’s impact on the natural world. To further appreciate what constitutes a structural engineer you must define what civil engineering is.

Civil engineering is the profession of understanding and ultimately changing the natural and man-made world. All things related to the environment within which humanity lives out its respective lives fall under the purview of a civil engineer; from the playground swing set a child enjoys to the solid waste management systems aboard the International Space Station (IIS).

Civil engineering, the eldest of all engineering disciplines, finds its history in the artisans of the ancient world.  For millennia man has been, for better or worse, “improving” the world around him. Until relatively recently, we as a species have relied solely upon intuition and experience to construct our society.  Take for example the builders of the Great Pyramids at Giza and the Temple at Karnak. Those responsible for the construction of these once great and still very impressive structures were not engineers, but their works are still standing thousands of years later, how?  It is because their designs were based on their own experience and intuition, a skill that has set humans apart from all other species on the planet.  For example, if I asked you to place a ruler on a table such that it extends as far out from the edge of the table as possible without falling off, you would most likely move the ruler quickly about half-way over the edge, then more slowly until it starts to tip and then lastly, move it back just a tiny bit.  How did you know to do that?  It was because of your understanding of balance. How about if I asked you to build a tower that is wider at one end than the other, which end would you put on the ground? The wider end, naturally. Intuition and experience will get you far, but they can lead to unexpected results when things aren’t exactly what they seem; e.g., the (leaning) Tower of Pisa.

Modern structural engineering takes these observations and intuitions about the physical world and applies scientific methods of identifying the forces at work followed by mathematics to describe and predict the behaviors.  The primary difference between an artisan builder of the past and a modern structural engineer is proof, by way of mathematics.  The artisan will build his house in a fashion he believes will be sturdy against the snow and wind, while the structural engineer will design his house such that he knows exactly how much snow and wind the house can withstand before yielding, and if it does yield he can predict exactly where and how it will break.

Amongst structural engineers there is a little joke that circulates that describes the profession, like most professional jokes, it is likely lost on the uninitiated but it goes like this, “Our job is simple, civil engineers simply balance all forces to zero, because nobody likes a building that accelerates.” We can thank Sir Isaac Newton for this exhibit of dry humor.