Engineering Catastrophes. Causes and Effects of Major Accidents

277 Pages·2005·9.56 MB·English

by  J.F. Lancaster (Auth.)

Engineering catastrophes
Related titles from Woodhead’s materials list:
Fatigue in railway structures
ISBN-13:978-185573-740-2
ISBN-10:1-85573-740-X
Fatigue strength of welded structures
ISBN-13:978-185573-506-4
ISBN-10:1-85573-506-7
Cumulative damage of welded joints
ISBN-13:978-185573-938-3
ISBN-10:1-85573-938-0
Emerging infrastructure materials
ISBN-13:978-185573-943-7
ISBN-10:1-85573-943-7
Analysis and design of plated structures Volume I:Stability
ISBN-13:978-185573-967-3
ISBN-10:1-85573-967-4
Details of these books and a complete list of Woodhead’s materials titles can be
obtained by:
• Visiting our web site at www.woodheadpublishing.com
• Contacting Customer Services (e-mail:[email protected];
fax:[phone];tel:[phone] ext 30;address:Woodhead
Publishing Limited,Abington Hall,Abington,Cambridge CB1 6AH,England)
Engineering catastrophes
Causes and effects of major accidents
Third edition
JOHN LANCASTER
Cambridge England
Published by Woodhead Publishing Limited,Abington Hall,Abington
Cambridge CB1 6AH,England
www.woodheadpublishing.com
Published in North America by CRC Press LLC,6000 Broken Sound
Parkway,NW,Suite 300,Boca Raton,FL 33487,USA
First edition 1996,Abington Publishing
Reprinted in paperback 1997
Second edition 2000,Abington Publishing and CRC Press LLC
Third edition 2005,Woodhead Publishing Ltd and CRC Press LLC
© 2005,Woodhead Publishing Ltd
The author has asserted his moral rights.
This book contains information obtained from authentic and highly regarded
sources.Reprinted material is quoted with permission,and sources are indicated.
Reasonable efforts have been made to publish reliable data and information,but
the author and the publishers cannot assume responsibility for the validity of all
materials.Neither the author nor the publishers,nor anyone else associated with
this publication,shall be liable for any loss,damage or liability directly or
indirectly caused or alleged to be caused by this book.
Neither this book nor any part may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means,electronic or mechanical,including photocopying,microfilming
and recording,or by any information storage or retrieval system,without
permission in writing from the publishers.
The consent of Woodhead Publishing and CRC Press does not extend to
copying for general distribution,for promotion,for creating new works,or for
resale.Specific permission must be obtained in writing from Woodhead
Publishing or CRC Press for such copying.
Trademark notice:Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks,and are used only for identification and explanation,without intent
to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
Woodhead Publishing ISBN-13:978-1-84569-016-8 (book)
Woodhead Publishing ISBN-10:1-84569-016-8 (book)
Woodhead Publishing ISBN-13:978-1-84569-081-6 (e-book)
Woodhead Publishing ISBN-10:1-84569-081-8 (e-book)
CRC Press ISBN-10:0-8493-9878-9
CRC Press order number:WP9878
The publishers’policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a
sustainable forestry policy,and which has been manufactured from pulp which is
processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices.
Furthermore,the publishers ensure that the text paper and cover board used
have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards.
Typeset by SNP Best-set Typesetter Ltd.,Hong Kong
Printed by TJ International Ltd,Padstow,Cornwall,England
Preface to first edition
One of the privileges of the great, said Jean Giraudoux, is to witness
catastrophes from a terrace. Giraudoux, who died in 1944, was a writer
and diplomat, but he was not much of a prophet. Television has made
nonsense of his words;today,it is the privilege of the multitude to witness
catastrophes from an armchair. Come flood, fire, famine, storm, tempest,
earthquake,volcanic eruptions or tidal waves,if the cameras can get there
we will see it. No longer is it necessary to imagine suffering caused by
disaster;it is there before us.
According to data collected by the United Nations, the cost of
reconstruction following natural disasters,and the numbers of people killed
or seriously affected by them, has risen during the last 30 years by an
average of about 6% per year. This is to be compared with an annual
population growth rate of 2%. Nobody knows why the effects of these
catastrophes are increasing at such a rapid rate, but it is certain that they
apply most severely to those countries that can least afford the cost.The
years 1994–2004 have been declared ‘the decade for natural disaster
reduction’.
In the nineteenth century a new type of man-made catastrophe appeared.
This was the start of the period of mass transportation, when railway
accidents could,and sometimes did,result in large numbers of deaths.At
the start of the century ships were relatively small so not many lives were
lost when a single vessel foundered. Tonnages increased quite rapidly,
however,and this period of growth culminated with the loss of over 1500
lives when the Titanic sank.
During the same period factories powered by steam engines grew in
number and in size,as did the number of industrial accidents.One of the
scandals of this period was the death rate due to boiler explosions.These
peaked in about 1900 and then mercifully declined.
In the twentieth century we have seen the development of air transport,
and the increasing size of aircraft has meant that a single loss could result
in hundreds of deaths. Another big development has been in ferry
transport,particularly roll-on,roll-off vehicle ferries.Here there have been
xv
xvi Preface to first edition
some widely publicised catastrophes, notably the Herald of Free Enterprise
and the Estonia. The worst ever shipping disaster was the sinking of a
passenger ferry in the Philippines,with the loss of over 4000 lives.
More recently the search for oil and gas on the continental shelf has led
to a completely new type of maritime activity.On mobile platforms in the
North Sea it is a particularly dangerous one, comparable with deep-sea
fishing so far as risk is concerned.
So where do we stand? Does the onward march of technology mean that
more people are facing greater hazards,or is it otherwise?
It is the purpose of this book to try to answer the question by looking
at the historical record of casualty and loss.War and pestilence have been
excluded and natural catastrophes are dealt with only in general terms,
except, for reasons that will be set forth later, in the case of earthquakes.
Most emphasis is on accidents to man-made objects and where possible
the records that are kept on a worldwide basis will be used. It must be
recognised,however,that such records refer almost entirely to ships,aircraft
and so forth that are made in and operated by industrial countries.
I have tried as far as possible to avoid technical jargon.In particular the
use of acronyms, except for a few old friends, has been avoided. This
tiresome and unnecessary practice afflicts offshore technology more than
most, such that some parts of Lord Cullen’s report on the Piper Alpha
disaster are incomprehensible,at least to the ordinary reader.Every effort
has been made here to call a spade a spade.
Many of the disasters recorded in this book took place before the current
(SI) system of units came into use.Where this is the case,the units quoted
in the text are those given in the contemporary documents.A conversion
table is provided in Appendix 2 in order that these older units may be
transposed,should this be so required.
Preface to second edition
In the first edition of this book,the incidence of accidents to vehicles and
structures was considered primarily in relation to mechanical breakdown,
on the one hand,or to human error,on the other.The effect of collective
human behaviour was noted in specific cases,but in general this important
topic was not covered. In order to redress the balance, a new chapter
entitled ‘The human factor’has been added.In this chapter loss and fatality
rates are reviewed in general terms,together with their relationship to large-
scale events such as war and the trade cycle. Historical data on road and
rail accidents, which are particularly relevant to this subject, have been
added.
In most industries and modes of transport, casualty and loss rates
(annual number of deaths in road accidents per 10000 licensed vehicles,
for example) fall with time.Technological improvements have undoubtedly
contributed largely to such beneficial changes. However, the effect of
human behaviour cannot be ignored and there are instances in which the
human factor appears to have had a large and predominant effect.
One such case is that of railways in Britain. Prior to the Second World
War,the number of passengers killed annually in train accidents had fallen
to a low level.During and immediately after the war,however,these fatality
numbers rose almost ten-fold, and remained high until 1953, after which
they started to fall.There was no physical change in the railway system that
could explain this sharp rise, which must have resulted from a change in
behaviour on the part of railway workers. Disaffection amongst manual
workers – the ‘British disease’ – was widespread in the post-war era, and
the railways seem to have suffered accordingly.
In the previous edition of this book, much space was expended in an
attempt to discover why,in a safety-conscious industry such as hydrocarbon
processing,capital losses should be increasing instead of diminishing.Time
has now provided an answer.After a long period of increase,capital losses
in oil refineries fell from 558.7 million US dollars (US$) in 1992 to
US$ 72.4 million in 1993,and have remained low up to the latest recorded
figure of US$ 12.1 million in 1996.There is no possibility of any significant
xii
Preface to second edition xiii
change in the relevant hardware between 1992 and 1993, so once again
human behaviour (in this instance that of refinery operators) must have
been responsible for the change. Even with contemporary levels of
automation and computer control it is possible to operate process plant in
a more risky or less risky fashion,but the size of the reduction,and the fact
that it occurred in plants scattered over the whole world, is quite
remarkable.The timing is not so remarkable;this was a period of recession,
when loss and fatality rates tend to fall. It had nothing to do with
throughput; consumption of crude oil remained steady during the
recession.
Apart from such relatively dramatic developments, there is a general
correlation between measures of economic growth and those of casualty
and loss rates. For example in Britain (and no doubt elsewhere) fatality
rates in road accidents fell less rapidly during the economic boom of the
1980s and dipped sharply during the subsequent recession. Accidents in
manufacturing industry followed a similar pattern. Such indicators may
be taken as a measure of the level of activity amongst the population of
the nation in question. Amongst developed countries the relevant figures
are broadly similar; the per capita gross domestic product is of the same
order of magnitude, and although growth rates are characteristic of
particular countries, they fall within a fairly narrow band. Worldwide,
however, this is not so, and the per capita gross domestic product of the
richest nations is over a thousand times greater than that of the poorest.
Here, too, there is a correlation between economic and safety indicators;
fatality rates in road accidents are highest in the poorer countries,and vice
versa.Again,the ratio between the highest and lowest figures is in the region
of one thousand.
The mechanisms that determine the levels of safety and economic growth
are a matter for speculation. Clearly, they involve the interaction of large
numbers of individuals, either directly or indirectly through technical
improvements.Thus, the skill of drivers improves as a result of collective
experience, whilst at the same time the vehicles and roads become safer.
The effectiveness of these changes will depend on the native ability and
temperament of the population concerned.
The final conclusion is that collective human behaviour is the
predominant factor in determining fatality and loss rates.The earlier view,
that improved safety results from a reduction in the incidence of human
error by technical change may provide a useful model in specific cases,but
it is not generally applicable.The incidence of human error may change of
its own accord;it may decrease through the acquisition of skills,or it may
increase through the development of negative attitudes of mind.Technical
change is itself the product of human inventiveness and effort.So the whole
xiv Preface to second edition
process is governed by human behaviour and its direction and rate are
determined internally by mechanisms which are, at present, little
understood.Positive economic growth is linked to falling accident rates and
their respective levels result from the history of the population concerned.
The trend is positive, although marred from time to time by a South Sea
Bubble or a ‘Titanic’catastrophe.
One thing is certain:in a peaceful democratic country it is not possible
for an individual, be that individual king, queen, president or prime
minister,to intervene directly so as to change the rate or direction of such
processes.There is no chain of command that would enable orders to be
conveyed to the populace at large. Nor is it likely, supposing such orders
were received, that they would be obeyed. It is characteristic of loss and
casualty rates where there is a large population that they display a lot of
inertia, such that over a long period of time the reduction in the casualty
or loss rate will either remain constant or will vary in a regular manner.
This behaviour is to be expected from a network that has millions of
connections, and by the same token it is not likely to be affected by
exhortation or orders from individuals. Governments may contribute to
safety by practical measures such as better roads or improved harbours,but
they cannot improve safety by regulation,or increase the economic growth
rate by passing a law to that effect.
Preface to third edition
There is a widely held, but rarely stated theory of accidents, according to
which each and every mishap has a cause, and that safety may best be
assured by discovering these causes and preventing their occurrence.The
first edition of this book was written from such a viewpoint,with particular
emphasis on mechanical failure.One reviewer of this edition pointed out,
quite correctly, that the human factor had been ignored. Accordingly an
extra chapter was added to the second edition,where the manner in which
human behaviour affected the incidence of accidents was examined.As a
result of this and much subsequent work,it has become evident that human
behaviour is not just a factor that affects improved safety and economic
growth,but that it entirely controls such developments.In this third edition,
therefore, the final chapter of the second edition has been omitted, and
Chapters 1 and 2 have been entirely rewritten so as to provide a method
of analysing the records of accident and all-cause mortality rates and their
decrease with the passage of time, to show their relationship with levels
of economic development and economic growth rates, and to make
suggestions about the ways in which such processes may be linked.
The picture that emerges is a very strange one.It would seem that human
beings inhabit, simultaneously, two separate worlds, between which there
is no direct communication. Firstly, there is the conscious world: that of
politics, entertainment, art, science and technology.The second world, of
which we are but dimly aware, comprises the subconsciously-directed
activity of large populations, which results in economic growth and the
reduction of mortality rates due to physical and biological accidents.
Evidence for the existence of the second world lies in the relevant historical
records,such as those examined in the first two chapters of this book.These
indicate a remarkably well-ordered, self-regulated activity and, in the case
of falling accident rates, one which is self-initiated.There is a close link
between economic growth and the fall in accident rates,such that both may
be regarded as aspects of human development as a whole.
These concepts are difficult to understand and accept because they relate
to human activities that are subconsciously guided,whereas it is generally
ix