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Engineering Ethics: America's Largest Maritime Disaster
In Engineering Ethics: America’s Largest Maritime Disaster, you'll learn ...
- What caused the largest maritime disaster in American history
- Lack of knowledge and false assumptions at the time of the disaster that increased the hazards associated with boiler operation
- Why boiler maintenance procedures on the Sultana were ineffective
- Poor decisions, corruption and unethical behavior that contributed to the large loss of life in the disaster
Overview
Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.
Credit: 2 PDH
Length: 17 pages
Within days of the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, a series of events would take place that caused the boarding onto a Mississippi river steam boat of over six times the legal capacity of persons on the vessel. The overloaded ship, The Sultana, was a large side wheel river steamer that had been built and launched just over two years earlier. The Sultana was one of only a few Mississippi river steam boats built and operating with a new, more efficient boiler type.
This course will present the background and basis of this new type river boat boiler and the design oversights in this new river boat’s application of it. The inadequate engineering considerations of the boilers installed in the Sultana for the conditions under which they would be operated are what caused the catastrophic failure.
The magnitude of the disaster in terms of lives lost (1,700) when the boilers exploded and the ship burned, was the result of decisions made by several individuals and also resulted from the corruption and unethical behavior by officials responsible for ensuring the public safety.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:
- Describe the historical theories regarding the cause of the boiler explosion that modern evidence has shown to be incorrect.
- Explain the actual cause of the explosion based on modern knowledge of boilers and materials.
- Describe the properties of the material used in the Sultana boilers and its incompatibility with the vessel’s operating conditions.
- Explain why the boiler maintenance procedures used at the time, although still successfully used today, were ineffective on the Sultana.
- Identify the critical knowledge of thermodynamics, boiler physics, and operation that was absent at the time and the false assumptions that increased boiler operation hazards.
- Explain how introducing new technology into existing infrastructure without adequately considering existing operating conditions can have catastrophic results.
- Describe how fear and suspicion of corruption and bribery influenced officials’ decision to overload the Sultana.
Certificate of Completion
You will be able to immediately print a certificate of completion after passing a multiple-choice quiz consisting of 15 questions. PDH credits are not awarded until the course is completed and quiz is passed.
| This course is applicable to professional engineers in: | ||
| Alabama (P.E.) | Alaska (P.E.) | Arkansas (P.E.) |
| Delaware (P.E.) | District of Columbia (P.E.) | Florida (P.E. Other Topics) |
| Georgia (P.E.) | Idaho (P.E.) | Illinois (P.E.) |
| Illinois (S.E.) | Indiana (P.E.) | Iowa (P.E.) |
| Kansas (P.E.) | Kentucky (P.E.) | Louisiana (P.E.) |
| Maine (P.E.) | Maryland (P.E.) | Michigan (P.E.) |
| Minnesota (P.E.) | Mississippi (P.E.) | Missouri (P.E.) |
| Montana (P.E.) | Nebraska (P.E.) | Nevada (P.E.) |
| New Hampshire (P.E.) | New Jersey (P.E.) | New Mexico (P.E.) |
| New York (P.E.) | North Carolina (P.E.) | North Dakota (P.E.) |
| Ohio (P.E. Self-Paced) | Oklahoma (P.E.) | Oregon (P.E.) |
| Pennsylvania (P.E.) | South Carolina (P.E.) | South Dakota (P.E.) |
| Tennessee (P.E.) | Texas (P.E.) | Utah (P.E.) |
| Vermont (P.E.) | Virginia (P.E.) | West Virginia (P.E.) |
| Wisconsin (P.E.) | Wyoming (P.E.) | |
Preview a portion of this course before purchasing it.
Credit: 2 PDH
Length: 17 pages
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