Errors in Structural Engineering

Abstract

The majority of structural failures, whether collapse or functional, are attributable to errors in design, construction, or operation. This paper attempts to review selected literature on the subject of errors in structural engineering. Various features such as the frequency, magnitude, classification, and detection of error are considered, together with causes and environments for error propagation and the role of control strategies in error abatement. In this last respect, the viewpoint on costs largely drives the professional attitude to error. If the full costs fall on the perpetrator, then a lively interest in controls prevails. If the costs are spread among practitioners, then the interest abates and changes to the detection of socially tolerable levels of error and failure incidence. The relation between errors and aspects of professional life and education is also discovered. The significance of frequent personnel changes, compressed design‐construction time, belief in codes and complex calculations, low pay, professional inexperience, and novelty of the structure are considered.